


the other side of this wide night

by mellyflori



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Everyone is mortal and we're all okay with that, I'll add a couple more tags as the chapters go up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:14:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellyflori/pseuds/mellyflori
Summary: Just above his eyeline, in dark purple Sharpie, is an addition so recent the ink is still a little wet.For a good time, call Nicky. Ask him about eating sushi with a fork.Underneath it is a phone number.Joe isn’t sure how long he stands there, staring at the words, before he says, out loud, “Is... is that a euphemism?”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 1090
Kudos: 1617





	1. the distance between us

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favorite things to do with fic is to take a completely out-there AU idea and just make it work. I used to do it with the plots of Hallmark Christmas movies as prompts. Once, I did a 'genie in a bottle' AU, and that turned out okay. For this fandom, I had an idea that I loved, that I was looking forward to writing, and then this thing ate my brain instead. 
> 
> I guess what I'm saying is: Maybe this is the 'saw your name written on a bathroom wall' AU no one asked for, but goddammit I'm gonna power right on through.
> 
> Of note: In keeping with the fact that we see him with a drink at the end of the movie, I've given Joe one night out where he drinks. It's just a few, and it's right in the first two paragraphs. If this is an issue for you, starting with the third paragraph should work.

Perhaps, in hindsight, the fourth drink had been a mistake. 

He isn’t drunk, barely tipsy, but he also only drinks about once a year. So this many drinks into the evening, Joe’s short term memory wasn’t up to its usual standards. Standing in the door of the bathroom, Joe thinks, ‘Why am I in here?’ It takes at least five seconds before he remembers that it’s the toilets, he’s had four drinks and three glasses of water, and things are beginning to get urgent.

In the process of carrying out this feat of memory, Joe finds himself staring at the wall and perusing the graffiti. Is he judging it? Perhaps, but he has an eye for art, it's an occupational hazard. 

At his two o’clock, a surprisingly anatomically plausible dick executed in blue ballpoint pen. Impressive. It takes work to get that kind of pen to write on painted cinderblock.

Below that, in thick black marker, a scathing, but not inaccurate, statement about one of the bartenders. There’s an odd use of an article, and for a second, Joe fixates on it. _Marcus is a cack._ A cack. _A_ cack. Really? He squints and can see where someone has gotten the U's tops too close together such that it could be mistaken for an ‘a.’ Oh! _Cuck._ That makes more sense _._ It’s still horrible and tacky, but at least it makes sense.

In dark purple Sharpie, just above his head is an addition so recent the ink is still a little wet.

_For a good time, call Nicky. Ask him about eating sushi with a fork._

Underneath it is a phone number. 

Joe isn’t sure how long he stands there, staring at the words, dick in the breeze, before he says, out loud, “Is... is that a euphemism?”

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and pulls up Urban Dictionary in a browser. No luck. Is the expression just too new? This bar, The Place on the Corner, doesn’t usually get customers on the cutting edge of developing slang, so it can’t be that new. 

Just searching the phrase doesn’t bring any results either, except a few comment threads across Reddit and Buzzfeed about whether or not such a thing should be punishable by death. This phrase starts to worm its way into Joe’s mind, to become the kind of question he can’t rest until he answers. 

A draft blows under the door, a customer shouts outside, and Joe shakes his head, trying to focus. Right. He’s standing at the urinal with his dick in one hand and his phone in the other, and this would be an unfortunate position to be in should someone else come through the door.

He rearranges himself, does up his zip, and programs the phone number into his contacts. The contact is labeled “Corner Toilet Mystery," and in the contact note, he adds “sushi with a fork?” The next day he’ll wonder why he didn’t just take a picture, but right at this moment, it seems somehow rude.

Hands washed, Joe returns to the table, sliding in next to his sister. “Does the phrase ‘eating sushi with a fork’ mean anything to you?” 

Taking a pull from his drink, he watches as Jess frowns. “Like, actually eating sushi with a fork?”

Joe shakes his head, swallowing, and putting his glass down. “No, as a euphemism. As code for something else.”

Her nose wrinkles in confusion. “What would that even be code for? Oh! Maybe it’s like when you’re going down on someone with a pussy, and you’re using a toy in them at the same time.” Which is just not the kind of thing Joe wants to hear his baby sister say.

“That’s going to leave a scar. Thank you. Forget I asked; I’ll figure it out myself.” 

It’s very much _not_ a euphemism.

In the four months they dated, Nicky and Josh fought more times than they could count. 

Neither of them went to the trouble of keeping a list, because who had that kind of time? But some stood out more than others. The great “Can you cook pork to temperature, or are you the kind of person who likes eating flavorless wood?” debate of week two was a memorable one. 

Also of note, the hour-long screaming match that started with, “What kind of fucking psycho just puts the boxes in the recycling without breaking them down?” but ended with Nicky getting an apology handjob.

In terms of arguments, people outside the relationship were aware of, week seventeen’s “Are you trustworthy enough to be the banker when we play Monopoly? Are you? _REALLY_? Because I saw how you looked at the new trainer at the gym,” had been Nicky's sister's favorite.

None of those fights, though, could hold a candle to tonight's blowout. In the abstract, Josh insisted it was a discourse addressing serious moral and ethical questions. Questions of control and oppression, of self-determination and agency, of folkways and ingenuity. Philosophers spent centuries arguing the dangers of losing traditions versus the death of the individual, so it was understandable that Josh and Nicky hadn’t been able to solve it in a night. 

Particularly if they hadn’t had the whole night. Because Josh had stormed out in the middle of the fight, snatching his keys from the table in the hall and shrieking his position one final time before slamming the door behind him. Josh’s argument amounted to this: If a man is aware that a task has traditionally been done in a specific way, and he has the tools and ability to perform it that way, he should. Why would he buck tradition and needlessly complicate things except to be deliberately difficult, because he just refused to PUT IN THE FUCKING WORK, NICKY! I MEAN, JESUS, THERE ARE CHOPSTICKS IN THE FUCKING BAG.

After storming out, Josh had called a friend, sobbed about breaking up with his boyfriend, and met the friend for drinks. In a way, he’d been looking forward to it. He didn’t drink a lot around Nicky because Nicky said after two beers, Josh became petty and mean. That night, Josh had three, just on principle. After which, he borrowed a Sharpie from the bartender and, once and for all, proved Nicky right by scrawling the most hurtful thing he could imagine right above the last urinal on the left.

When they go their separate ways, it seems like an inevitability. The final infuriating straw for Josh is how not-even-a-little seriously Nicky seems to take Josh. Josh believes himself to be a man of dignity and refinement who makes well-structured arguments. Nicky, however, knows the truth. Josh is a drama queen. Sure, his face is stunningly beautiful, but only if you put a dick in his mouth long enough to stop him talking.

Josh is expecting to be greeted by a worried Nicky when he gets back to the house. Perhaps with his hair mussed from running his hands through it while pacing, wondering if there was any way he could ever win Josh back. Josh is prepared to be gracious in victory.

What he finds is a box sitting outside Nicky’s door. There’s a post-it note on the top that simply says, “Josh.” Inside are all the little things Josh has left at Nicky’s place: a coffee mug, five socks, two ties, a couple of books, and one or two changes of clothes. Josh is both angry and confused. 

(Though, not nearly as confused as Joe, who at that exact moment is trying to simultaneously program Nicky’s number into his phone and not get his cock caught in his zipper.)

Josh knocks on the door. Nicky answers, barefoot, wearing his favorite pair of criminally threadbare pajama bottoms and an NYU t-shirt that's at least one size too small. Josh hates that shirt.

“I hate that shirt.” They wait-listed him; he’s still bitter. 

“What do you want, Josh?”

“I want to talk.”

“No, you want to lecture, and I’m through letting you talk at me. Take your box and go.”

Stunned, Josh picks up the box, but as he turns to leave, he remembers something.

“Where are the DVDs?”

Nicky scratches low on his belly. “What DVD’s?”

“My movies.”

“Oh,” Nicky yawns. “I’m keeping them. They deserve a better home, with someone who understands them instead of just wanting to argue about their meaning.”

“Actually, it’s not arguing; it’s intelligent conversation. And you don’t even like avant-garde French cinema!”

Nicky sighs; he’s tired. “Yes, Josh, I do.”

“Then why would you never discuss them with me?” 

“Because I have better things to do with my time. Things like enjoying movies without being an elitist asshole about it, Josh.” With Nicky on the other side of it, the door slams shut, and Josh can hear the deadbolt slide home. Other people start fights; Nicky finishes them.

Stunned, Josh shifts the box until he has a better grip and carries it to his car. He will spend the rest of his life not understanding why no one wants to have real, in-depth intellectual discourse with him, and why none of his relationships last. The answers, though elusive to him, are simple. He’s a jerk, and he’s selfish in bed.

Joe goes into the bathroom twice more before the night is over. The first time, someone else is at that urinal, and Joe feels oddly territorial about it. When he’s back in there an hour later, it’s empty, so he has the luxury of a bit of time to stare at the words again. Joe tries, he really does, to get them to make sense. He refuses to be defeated but graffiti. “You’re not going to win this, sushi man,” he says. 

From one of the stalls behind him, there’s a chuckle, then a flush. It’s probably time to stop drinking.

He makes it home in one piece, vowing never again to try to go drink-for-drink with Jess. This time he means it.

He doesn’t forget about the sushi graffiti, exactly, but he doesn’t _not_ forget about it either. It’s there, in his head, in his phone, and once or twice a month, it slides into the edges of his thoughts. 

Four weeks after the night in the bar, Jess and their other sister come over for dinner and a movie. Tansil tells them to pick the movie while she lays out dinner. Joe comes back into the kitchen to find the counter covered in take-out containers of sushi. “Corner Toilet Mystery guy,” he thinks, entirely involuntarily.

Across town, Nicky orders a pizza and settles into his couch to watch _Cléo from 5 to 7._ He occupies himself while waiting for the pizza by peeling off the ‘From the Library of” sticker that Josh had put on the back. Nicky remembers the night Josh brought it over. He'd briefly considered telling Josh that it was, strictly speaking, French New Wave, not avant-garde, before deciding that, on that particular occasion, he’d rather have a blowjob than a fight. 

Nicky can picture Josh’s face turning purple with rage as he watches Nicky shove an entire folded slice of sausage and onion into his mouth at once while watching this movie. Does that make the movie a little more enjoyable? It does.

Six months later, Joe’s in a minor fender-bender on 395 going into DC. It’s not the morning rush-hour, thank God, so that he can pull over relatively quickly. He’s thumbing through his contacts trying to find the number of his insurance company when “Corner Toilet Mystery” goes scrolling past. “Seriously, though, what was that about?” Joe mutters. 

Not long after New Year’s, Jess meets Joe for drinks again to tell him about her new job. This time, he sticks to water. The graffiti is still there. It’s a little smudged, but legible. It still just says, “Ask him about eating sushi with a fork,” and Joe wonders, not for the first time, if this means that Sushi Man is good at whatever the euphemism is, or bad at it. What can you be so bad at that it inspires someone to besmirch you above the urinal? Because it doesn’t say that Sushi Man is a jerk, or that he’s a cheat. It just implies that he’s got a position on this euphemism, whatever it is. It’s been more than a year, and Joe is no closer to an answer than he had been. And he’s just as irritated about that.

“Did you fall in, or was there someone in there so hot you had to bang them in the stall before you came back out?” Jess asks.

“What?”

“You were in there for a while.”

“I’m too old for making out in bathrooms; it makes my back hurt.”

“Poor Yusuf, so ancient.”

Someday he’s going to get an answer to the sushi question; he just hopes it’s worth taking this kind of shit from his baby sister.

In February, Nicky gets a promotion. To celebrate, he also gets a house plant and a bruise on his lower leg where his one-night-stand tries to steer him toward the couch and hits the coffee table instead. It’s not great sex, but they each get at least one orgasm, and at no point does the guy use the word, “Actually,” so it’s better than Josh.

The first Spring day that it’s properly warm coincides with the peak of the cherry blossoms. It’s a good day to walk to the next Metro station along the line from his usual stop and pick it up there. On the way, Joe takes a few pictures. He’s not a great photographer, but working downtown with so many incredible buildings has sparked an interest, so he’s followed a few street photographers on Instagram, and he’s practicing. Mostly, though, he’s enjoying the sun on his face. 

Waiting for the train, Joe texts a few of the pictures to his sisters. The doors to the car open just as he’s in the middle of typing a response to Jess, so he shoves his phone in his back pocket, thinking he’ll finish it when there's some elbow room. 

It’s just crowded enough that he’d rather not finish the text and risk people staring over his shoulder. He pulls his book out of his backpack and reads instead, hoping he can tune out the tinny metallic chattering coming out of the headphones of the girl standing next to him. 

Three stops later, a boy of about eleven boards the train with his mother, and someone makes room for them to sit. For the next two stops, the boy can’t stop staring at the cover of Joe's book. When he looks up, he sees Joe looking at him and looks nervous. Joe smiles, hoping it’s coming off as open and friendly rather than creepy.

“Is your book good?” the kid asks.

“Yeah, I like it.”

The boy jabs an inquisitive finger at the cover illustration. “What’s with that guy?” 

“He’s got tattoos.”

“My uncle’s got tattoos.”

“Do your uncle’s tattoos come to life and tell stories?” The kid’s eyes are enormous as he shakes his head. “This guy’s tattoos do.”

“Is the book about him?” 

“Some of it. It’s short stories. I first read it when I was a little older than you, and I loved the stories.”

The kid fishes his phone out of his backpack and holds it up as if to say, ‘Can I?’ Joe holds the book so the kid can get a good picture of the cover. He’s a little worried this is freaking out the kid’s mom, but when Joe checks, she’s smiling at them both. 

There’s another burst of noise from the girls’ headphones, followed by something that sounds like excited talking. Joe stops himself from shooting her a dirty look and telling her to turn her music down, but it’s a close call.

Coming out of the Metro station always feels like emerging from a bunker, and Joe blinks his eyes as he readjusts to the sun. His apartment isn’t far from the station, but Joe decides to make a side trip. As is customary for a day like this, dozens of windows are open along his walk. Joe finds himself picking up one song after another like he’s changing tracks on a playlist; he hums along when he can. There’s some classical, an enthusiastically loud Broadway standard, even some talk that might be a podcast or an audio book. Joe can’t quite make it out. 

A lot of the sound spilling from the open windows seems to be podcasts. For a minute, Joe imagines they're conversations following him on his walk, and he smiles. 

He walks past a townhouse with a window box bursting with bright red flowers. The music pouring out of it is one of his favorite songs, one his coolest uncle used to blast from the car while they drove around the city. Joe whistles along, keeping up the tune even as the music grows too distant to make out.

The bell over the door of Joe’s favorite take-out joint gives a cheery ring as he enters. The place, as always, smells _incredible._

“Joe!”

“Rick, very good to see you.”

“Mom cooked today.”

“Music to my ears.” Rick’s a great cook, but he’s making his mother’s recipes. It stands to reason that she’s going to be slightly better than he is at some of them. One of the ones she’s better at is Joe’s favorite.

“Usual?”

“Please.”

While Joe waits, he and Rick discuss the day, some of the local news, and their plans for avoiding the busloads of tourists who'll be arriving that weekend to see the blossoms. Rick asks about Joe’s research; Joe asks after Rick’s daughters. It’s the kind of friendly neighborhood scene you’d expect to see in a movie about New York filmed in Vancouver.

As Rick is entering Joe’s order into the register, his mother comes out. There’s a flurry of Arabic, mostly greetings between the two of them and remarks from her that he looks tired and should eat more. He replies that he’s planning on doing just that, and he’s sure it will be delicious. Layla pats his hand, and Joe delivers a line or two of poetry from a translation he’s just finished.

Her smile is warm and maternal. “Charming boy, Yusuf. Full of shit, but charming.” 

In this instance, she might have a point.

He catches hints of distant conversations back on the street and wonders if someone’s having a rooftop cookout somewhere. Halfway up his street, Joe remembers that he’d been in the middle of a text when the train arrived. Pulling his phone from his pocket, Joe goes to unlock the screen only to see that it’s already unlocked. It’s not only unlocked, but it’s also showing he’s actively in a call.

Joe hadn’t locked his phone before he put it in his pocket, had assumed it would lock itself in a minute or two. As payment for his hubris, the universe has seen fit to let Joe’s ass call— oh fuck. Please, no. 

According to the display, Joe’s right ass cheek has spent the last thirty-seven minutes on a call to Corner Toilet Mystery. 

This is bad. 

Except. 

Thirty-seven minutes is a long time for a butt-dial. Even if Joe had gotten this guy's voicemail, it still would have cut him off after three or four minutes, not let it go on for half an hour more. The only thing that would keep the call engaged is if this guy answered and hasn’t hung up yet. 

Maybe it wasn’t a real person? Maybe a machine had picked up and not disconnected. Joe lifts the phone slightly closer to his head. It’s faint, barely there at times, but from the earpiece, Joe makes out the sound of an even-toned male voice carrying on what seems to be at least half of a conversation.

This guy has been casually talking to Joe’s ass for thirty-seven minutes and counting. What kind of person talks to thin air for more than half an hour?

It’ll have to be a mystery for the ages. Because as curious as Joe’s been for the last two years, he’s cringing too hard right now to do anything more than hit the “End” button and pray for a swift death.

_Goodbye, Sushi Man._

Two miles away, Nicky is staring at his phone in a state of bewildered irritation. 


	2. singing an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay, Pocket Guy, what’s your story?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm catching up on comments this afternoon, and holy cow you guys have been incredible! Every comment has made me smile or laugh or blush, and sometimes all three. Feedback like that is amazing, and I hope you enjoy this one as well. We're moving the plot along, and on the plus side, there's practically no Josh!

Nicky wouldn’t even have answered, except that he’d been expecting a call from his boss. She’d emailed the team yesterday to say that she’d lost her phone. 

From Andy, that’s a statement that only leaves him with more questions. Was this like when she ‘lost’ it by leaving it on top of her car and then accidentally driving over it? Or closer to when ‘lost my phone’ meant she gotten pissed off at the person on the other end of the call, dropped it on the ground, and stomped it with her heel until it was no longer recognizably a phone?

He’d have to ask when they were all back in the office. His boss's mail had said she'd be reaching out to them if she ended up with a new number. Nicky assumed that meant emailing them again, but when the phone rang, he’d second-guessed himself and answered.

“Andy, this the new number?” No reply. “Andy? ANDY.” Still nothing.

For the first thirty seconds, he’d shouted, trying to get the caller’s attention. After that, he’d taken advantage of the lack of feedback and given this ass-dialing stranger a piece of his mind. It wasn’t his best moment. He’d had a rough week with Andy out of the office--Too much to do, too many calls, not enough hours—and he’d taken it out on this guy. 

Or rather, the inside of this guy’s back pocket.

If you’d looked Nicky in the eye and asked if he apologized to the pocket for being short-tempered, he’d have firmly, unequivocally denied it. You might even have believed him.

He’d been ready to hang up and let this be a story he told no one, ever, when he heard the unmistakable sound of the door chimes on a Metro train and the sound of a kid’s voice asking about a book.

The voice answering the kid had been warm and friendly without being condescending. They’d traded remarks about the book, and Nicky felt something flickering at the back of his mind at the words ‘tattoos’ and ‘short stories.’ He’d worried his lower lip with his teeth for a minute before it came to him.

“Oh! I know this book!” he yelled, slapping one hand down on the cushion. 

Excellent, Nicky. He buried his face in his hands. You’ve just announced your triumph to your sofa, and this stranger’s ass.

Nicky sat with his feet on the coffee table and a plate of food in his lap. Nothing in his movie or TV queues was interesting, and he was intrigued now, by the book. With no better offers for the evening, Nicky decided to go along for the ride.

On the menu for tonight? A slow-cooked chicken over couscous. He’s paired it perfectly with a dry white wine, and the ambient life noise of this unknown man— let’s call him Pocket Guy.

After the train, Pocket Guy had come back up to street level and walked for a while. He’d hummed along to the music he heard, and Nicky joined in when he could. Gradually, the amusement factor had given way to morbid curiosity. How, in a day and age when accidentally dialing the wrong number was increasingly tricky, had this stranger ended up calling him? 

It had to mean Nicky was in his contacts already. Still, Nicky was fairly conscientious about having a contact for everyone who had him in theirs, and his phone had no idea who this guy was.

How had a total stranger ended up with Nicky’s number programmed into his phone? New phone for an old friend, maybe? But usually, the first thing they’d do was send a text saying so. Doctor’s office? Possibly, but he didn’t have any calls into anyone and no upcoming appointments. The longer he listened to the soft fwip-fwip of fabric over the phone's mouthpiece, the more confused Nicky got.

“Okay, Pocket Guy, what’s your story?”

When the guy started whistling, Nicky grinned despite himself. It was a great song, and he’d been happy to hear it, even if only in the most enthusiastically off-key way he’d ever heard. 

“I will hand it to you, Pocket Guy, you have decent taste in music and books.” 

He heard a bell, followed by a friendly greeting. Nicky left the two of them to their conversation and held up his end for a while. 

“So, Pocket Man. Can I call you Pocket? Okay, good. Perfect. Listen, Pocket, I don’t know how to say this to you, but I feel like we’re just not connecting the way we should. I feel like we barely know each other.” Nicky shoveled some couscous into his mouth, listening to the two men on the other end of the call for a minute.

“I see. That’s a fair complaint, and you’re right,” Nicky said in response to absolutely nothing they’d actually talked about. "I haven’t really been trying either. There’s no excuse, I know. Work has been hard, with my boss out, but I’m sure it’s been hard for you, too in… whatever job it is that you have. What about if I tell you a story from my day, and you tell me one from yours? Today, the head of the local liason team dribbled most of his lunch down his tie. That was good for a laugh. Also, I think my boss murdered another phone.” 

He speared some more chicken and ate it. “Oh, how could I forget? A complete stranger accidentally dialed me while he was on the Metro, and I got to listen to him go about his day.” In a profoundly absurd moment, Pocket Guy had burst into laughter. “I know it seems ridiculous to me too. What’s worse is that—“ 

Nicky froze mid-word. 

On the other end of the call, Pocket Guy paid for his food, and Nicky’s ears pricked up. “Pocket Guy, where did you stop for dinner?”

Nearly thirty minutes into this call, and it was the first time Nicky had been more frustrated than amused, because he _knew_ that place. This stranger had invaded Nicky's life in more ways than one, now, without the courtesy of an introduction or a note. Nicky had been preparing a few good lines about integrity and privacy when he heard Layla’s voice.

“Hello! So good to see you again,” she said. She and Pocket Guy talked for a few seconds, sharing tales of their days, Nicky guessed, until finally she’d given a maternal _tsk_ and told him he was too tired and needed to eat more.

_Too tired, you need to eat more._

The third or fourth time Nicky had gone in and gotten the same words from her, he’d asked her what they meant. Since then, she’s taught him a new phrase or two whenever he goes in, and the ones they’d started with were these simple greetings and exchanges. 

This overheard conversation had been much faster than Nicky was used to, of course. There had been more idioms too, but he knew some of those words and that phrase in particular. If Layla liked Pocket Guy enough to fuss at him to eat more, that was good enough for Nicky. 

All the frustration vanished, and in its place was left a smile so big Nicky was pretty sure someone was going to slap him just to get rid of it.

“You know, Pocket Guy, now I wish I’d stopped for dinner there instead of cooking.” He’d wished a lot of things. “It really is the best place for miles.” 

Nicky couldn't make out the exact words Pocket Guy said next. They were so thoroughly muffled Nicky couldn’t even tell if they were English.

He _could_ make out most of her reply. “-- boy, Yusuf. Full of shit, but —”

Nicky lost any other words to the sound of bags changing hands and the bell over the door.

Wherever Pocket Guy had gone next, he’d turned onto quieter streets. 

(No. Not Pocket Guy. Yusuf. She’d called him by name. Then again, Nicky wasn’t talking to the man himself. Split the difference, he decided.)

Without warning, there’d been the loud, scraping pull of the phone’s mic against denim. Then near-silence. There were some insects out, though not many, and maybe one or two birds, but that was it—no passing conversations, no music, no walking noises, and not a word from Pocket Yusuf. 

(Pocket Yusuf. Yes, that worked.)

“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Nicky said. “I’m going to shout to you one more time. If I still get no answer, I’ll hang up. Maybe I’ll text you later just to ask you to delete this contact. Ready?”

Two miles away, at the same moment Nicky drew breath to shout, Joe ended the call.

  
Now, Nicky is sitting on his couch, glaring at his phone. 

“Pocket Yusuf, you’re giving me some mixed signals right now.” 

Before common sense can get a foot in the door, Nicky goes into his recent calls and taps the top number.

It rings three times. Nicky is mentally preparing his message for the inevitable voicemail recording when he hears a steady, cautious voice say, “Hello?”

“Did you just hang up on me in the middle of a conversation?”

He gets nothing but silence in return. “I said—“

“You’d call that a conversation?” His voice is perfectly ordinary. It’s not very deep or oddly high, and Nicky can’t pick out even a trace of an accent. The only thing that makes his voice interesting is that Nicky can actually _hear_ him smiling. Smirking, really.

“What else would I call it?”

“Technically, wouldn’t it be more of a monologue?”

“Because a conversation requires more than one person? There were two of us; you just weren’t listening to anything I was saying, which was a little rude if we’re honest. And also, not my fault. I tried getting your attention.”

“By doing what?”

“I yelled at you for at least two minutes. Of course, I don’t know your name, so I had to settle for ‘Hey!’ and ‘Hello!’” Nicky lets the silence after that stretch for a second or two. 

“You’re Nicky.”

Nicky pulls the phone away from his face in a way he’s only seen people do in bad television. It’s still the same unknown number. 

“Excuse me?"

“You are,” he sounds excited. Again, not what Nicky had expected. “You’re _Nicky_.”

“Out of curiosity, how creepy are you trying to sound?”

“You had a conversation with the inside of my jeans for half an hour, so who’s creepy now?”

Nicky laughs. “The only way you could have called me is if my number was already in your phone. So, it's still you. Why the hell do you have my number?”

“I…found it.”

“You found it. And my name was with it?”

“Yeah, it was. Okay, you have a point that maybe sounds a little creepy. Can I explain?” He pauses. “Have you ever come across a question where you couldn’t find the answer?”

“Yes, and I’ll ask it again. Why do you have my name and number?”

Somewhere, Pocket Yusuf sighs, defeated.

“I’m in no position to bargain right now, but I gotta ask: If I tell you why I have your name and number, will you answer a question after?”

Nicky is in grave danger of being impressed with this guy’s balls. “I’ve seen stranger things happen.”

“I found your name and number—“ he sighs again, and Nicky wonders if anything could possibly measure up to this level of anticipation—"On the wall of the bathroom in my sister’s favorite bar."

That would do it.

“Someone wrote my name and number on a bathroom wall?”

“Yes,” he says. 

“Why?”

Through the phone, Nicky can hear the sound of flesh and bone hitting wood, as though someone, finally exasperated beyond measure, has let his head thud against a hard surface. “I’ll be honest; I’ve been trying to figure that out for two years."

“Two. Years? So that you know, this isn’t making you sound _less_ creepy.”

“I know. It probably doesn’t help to say that it wasn’t the name and number that got my attention, does it?”

“It might; would you like to explain?”

“Whoever it was wrote your name and number, and underneath that—“ he trails off.

“You’re not seriously going to back out now, are you, Pocket Guy?” This guy has had balls to spare so far; Nicky will be deeply disappointed if this is where he loses his nerve.

Nicky’s teasing seems to go unnoticed. “Underneath that it said people should ask you how you feel about eating sushi with a fork.”

For nearly half a minute, there is no sound of any kind except the two of them breathing.

Silently, Nicky is recalibrating his already low opinion of Josh to adjust it downward. Because this _has_ to be Josh, only Josh would think that the proper response to an argument between adults would be bathroom graffiti. When reaching for the most scathing possible insult, he's also the only person who would come up with, “eats sushi with a fork.” 

Nicky tries to imagine Josh, pen in hand, gleefully scribbling on the wall. It’s shockingly easy to picture. 

The Josh in Nicky’s head is sticking his tongue out just a little, to help him concentrate.

“Un-fucking-believable.” 

“Does that mean something to you?” Pocket Yusuf asks as Nicky begins to laugh.

He hasn’t been this amused in years. Mostly at Josh’s idiocy, but also by the way Pocket Yusuf’s determination mixes with his chagrin. There’s curiosity, and then there are two years of dedicated confusion somehow overcoming the embarrassment of the rest of the situation.

“It does, yes.”

“What?” Yusuf asks, and Nicky tries to remember the last time he heard someone this weary. Himself, probably, after listening to Josh, scream at him about chopsticks.

This poor, beleaguered Pocket Yusuf. He’s spent two years with something sitting in the back of his brain like a half-remembered song lyric, and though he could have called or texted at any point, he hadn’t, not on purpose. It’s not like accidentally dialing a contact is an uncommon occurrence, either. Nicky’s done it a few times himself. Including, in one unfortunately vivid recollection, calling Andy while he was in the bathroom. 

He might have lived it down if he hadn’t started singing.

His point is, it’s an honest mistake.

“What does it mean?” Pocket Yusuf says. “Because I’ve never been able to figure out what it’s code for.”

Nicky would give anything to see this guy’s face right now, just to have a little more to base his hunches on. He’s making a mental tally, and it’s not coming out as unbalanced as he’d expected. Should this guy have just taken a picture of the graffiti and moved on? Yes, but also he’d had the number for two years and never done anything with it. The call to Nicky hadn’t been a choice, it had been an accident, and as soon as he’d noticed it, Pocket Yusuf had disconnected rather than intrude or demand.

Of the two of them, Nicky is the one who went barging into a stranger’s life by calling the number back.

The problem is that at some point in the last hour, Nicky’s started to like Pocket Yusuf. He’s funny and quick-witted and curious, three of Nicky’s weak spots.

He’d said, “my sister’s favorite bar,” which meant that he knew his sister well enough, was friendly enough with her to know this kind of thing, and that said quite a bit. When the kid on the train had asked a question, the reply was patient and pitched to get the kid interested in the book. Even the slightly manic enthusiasm with which Pocket Yusuf said his name was less creepy than it could have been. Rick’s mom likes him, which counts for almost more than the rest of the considerations taken together.

And, let’s be honest, Nicky’s made more important decisions with less justification. 

If you didn’t count that hotel in Budapest, most of them had even turned out well.

“The food you got earlier, was that for dinner tonight or tomorrow night?”

The pause loiters for a while before Yusuf speaks, and Nicky wonders if he might have finally broken the man.

“What?”

“Did you get yourself dinner for tonight, or are you saving it for tomorrow?”

“What does that have—“

“This isn’t a hard question to answer.”

His Pocket Yusuf is getting flustered. It’s very unlucky for him that Nicky finds his frustration so entertaining.

“Tonight.”

“Meet me there the day after tomorrow. Dinner. Seven.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“It’s quite simple? The answer to your question is the kind of information one shouldn’t give away for free. We can meet there; you pay for dinner, and I’ll tell you a story.”

“A story.”

“At least one.”

“When did I stop being creepy?” 

“Who said you stopped?”

“But you want to meet me for dinner.”

Nicky can’t keep the grin off his face; he wonders if it’s coming through in his voice. “I feel like I know enough about you to meet you in a public place, with other people around, in daylight, nowhere near my house.”

“What do you mean, you ‘know enough about me?’ All you know is that I’ll carry a stranger’s contact info in my phone for two years without deleting it and that my back pocket is a terrible conversational partner.”

It’s a moment for strategy. Nicky could tease this out for a while longer, or he could put his cards on the table and get on with his evening. It’s half-past seven; neither of them is getting any younger. Plus, at some point tonight, he should get some laundry done. He decides to just go for it.

“You like classic sci-fi, Pete Townshend, and Rick’s mother’s cooking. That should be enough to start, don’t you think, Yusuf?”

He can hear Yusuf trying to shove words through the confusion and surprise that are crowding his throat. 

“I’ll be there at seven,” Nicky says, softening just a little. “If you’d like the sushi answer, I’ll see you there. Otherwise, thank you for an interesting evening.”

“How—“

“I’m hanging up now.”

He thumbs the “End” button. See you soon, Pocket Guy.

If Yusuf isn’t interested, he knows how to get contact Nicky, and if Nicky gets stood up, he’ll have them box up his food, and he'll eat at home. He won’t think about how this is the most fascinating conversation he’s had in at least a year.

In his living room, Joe is staring at the wall, phone still in his hand.

What the hell just happened?

How did he end that call with what feels suspiciously like a date, but no actual answers about what “eating sushi with a fork” means? When Joe woke up that morning, he felt like today would be like any other day. That was his first mistake.

Joe has dinner, watches some TV, answers a few emails, and replays that conversation in his head. It seemed so strange that this character he’d created in his head should be a perfectly ordinary-sounding man. Smart, obviously, and painfully clever enough to leave a warm ball of something in the pit of Joe’s belly, but still just a man.

There had been one barely-noticeable moment of concern at the end when Sushi Man— Nicky— when Nicky had returned fire with a list of Joe’s interests and the name only a handful of people call him—thinking back, though, it's clear. Nicky isn’t some deranged admirer; he’s just someone who truly pays attention to people around him, who can focus that attention on the person he’s interacting with to make them feel seen.

There’s a technical term for what Joe thinks of that: Really fucking sexy. 

There had been more than enough hints and context clues in Joe’s commute home to give Nicky all that information. Even his name was in there if Nicky could make any sense of the Arabic.

It seems unfair, fundamentally, that he should know that much about Joe. All Joe knows about Nicky is his name, the startling attractiveness of his mind, and that he likes that take-out place enough to recognize the owner’s voice. He’s just getting into bed when that thought occurs to him, and Joe spends the next few minutes staring at the ceiling and playing mental connect-the-dots.

For Nicky to recognize her voice, she must talk to him fairly regularly. That isn’t something she does for every customer who comes through the door. If Joe wanted to, he could call over in the morning, when she’s getting everything ready for the day, and ask her about this Nicky, who comes in often enough that he knows her voice.

Would that be cheating? Maybe, but the more important question, Joe, is: when did this become a game?


	3. the room is turning slowly away from the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By seven on the evening of Joe and Nicky’s meeting, it’s been pouring down rain for four hours; it’s not a particularly auspicious sign. Joe arrives a few minutes early and takes a seat at one of the three small tables crammed into the storefront. 
> 
> “Joe? Are you ordering?”
> 
> “In a minute? Someone’s meeting me.”
> 
> Rick nods and calls back to his mother. “Can you bring Joe something while he’s waiting for his friend?”
> 
> Friend. It seems like a stretch, but, as Nicky himself had said, stranger things have happened.
> 
> Layla brings him a plate with some carrots and flatbread and hummus to dip them in. “Is it a date?” 
> 
> “Ask me later,” Joe says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to get this up earlier today but that plan was, as the tacticians say, overcome by events. I ended up being stuck away from home and reliable internet for most of the day. Still, it's still going up in the "today" time frame, so we're calling that a win.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for the comments and enthusiasm and kudos. They make me laugh and cry and blush and write more and you are all amazing, commenters and lurkers alike!
> 
> [Cee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/ceeturnalia) provides enthusiastic encouragement, validation of plot choices, and--if the last two chapters are anything to go by--whatever your favorite line is.

  
By seven on the evening of Joe and Nicky’s meeting, it’s been pouring down rain for four hours; it’s not a particularly auspicious sign. Joe arrives a few minutes early and takes a seat at one of the three small tables crammed into the storefront. 

“Joe? Are you ordering?”

“In a minute? Someone’s meeting me.”

Rick nods and calls back to his mother. “Can you bring Joe something while he’s waiting for his friend?”

Friend. It seems like a stretch, but, as Nicky himself had said, stranger things have happened.

Layla brings him a plate with some carrots and flatbread and hummus to dip them in. “Is it a date?” 

“Ask me later,” Joe says. She smiles at him. He smiles back and picks at the food a bit until the bell over the door rings and catches his attention.

On the list of things that might have helped Joe react better when the most beautiful man in the world walks through the door: A finely-tuned poker face, even the slightest trace of chill, not having an entire mouthful of food stuck mid-swallow.

Any hope Joe had of appearing smooth or composed is lost the second he starts to cough around the chunk of carrot he’s just inhaled. Rick looks up, startled; so does the man Joe is fervently praying is not Nicky.

“Joe?” Rick’s voice sounds alarmed. Joe holds a hand up to say, ‘I’ve got this,’ before scrambling for a paper towel. He somehow manages to get one up in front of his face before he finally coughs up the carrot and an enormous blob of hummus. At the rate things are going, Joe fully expects that to be the bright spot in the evening. 

“I’m good, Rick. I’m—“ he pauses to cough a bit more “— I’m fine.”

“You want some water?” 

Joe nods. “Thanks.”

There is a freedom that comes with abject failure. Now that Joe knows he’s essentially ruined any chance he might have had with this gorgeous man, he feels a kind of bravado come over him. Looking up, Joe meets the new arrival's eyes, and honestly, given his luck, how could this be anyone but his absolutely-no-longer-a-date?

The twist of a resigned, indulgent smile is the last thing Joe expects to see.

Watching the man at the table cough up was seems to be half a lung, then hunt for somewhere to put the wadded up paper towel he’d used to catch it, Nicky has two thoughts in rapid succession.

  
'That was disgusting.'

then

  
'I can’t believe I’m going to have sex with this man.'

  
Because, assuming this beautiful man is his dinner companion, and assuming his in-person verbal sparring is anything like it was on the phone? 

Nicky's going to have so much sex with this man.

Now that the punch of the initial impression of knee-weakening gorgeous combined with one-man-disaster is starting to fade, Nicky tries taking in the details. Wild curls, huge, dark eyes, and a mouth that seems like it should be on a list of weapons of mass destruction.

  
“Is it safe to sit across from you?” Nicky asks. The man Nicky is assuming is Yusuf nods, then, like a seismic event, he smiles.

That smile is incredible. Warm and happy and open, and Nicky thinks he understands now why poets compare their lovers to oceans or the wind because anything else just seems too small. 

“Yes, I think I’ve finished trying to inhale my food.” At this point, Nicky comes face to face with a nightmare he hadn’t even thought to prepare for: The smile gets bigger. Now deep dimpled grooves appear at the sides of his mouth, and the corners of his eyes have crinkled. Nicky wants to do whatever it takes to keep that smile on this man’s face. Possibly forever. He feels any composure he might have had draining away, vanishing into thin air.

Don’t show fear, Nicky. That smile can probably smell fear, and that can only make it stronger. Bigger. Trying to imagine that smile even bigger only results in a sound inside Nicky’s head like a moth hitting a bug light. If Yusuf's eyes started to twinkle, Nicky’s not entirely sure he’d survive. 

Nicky slides the chair out and sits. “Should we do formal introductions?”

“Sure,” again with the smile. “I’m Joe,” he says as he holds out his hand.

“That would make me Nicky.” 

What does that even mean, Nicky? Can you hear yourself?

By the time Nicky realizes he’s spent too long thinking of the three million things he could have said that would have been better than ‘That would make me Nicky,’ enough time has passed that Joe pulls his hand back, unshaken. His smile has gone painfully awkward.

“Oh damn, I’m sorry I— it doesn’t matter. Hello.” Nicky holds out his hand. Joe reaches out and shakes it, and that perfect smile comes back. 

Nicky knows he should have had a _plan_. Having the upper hand for most of their conversation yesterday obviously made him complacent, assuming he could walk in here and be as clever as he’d felt last night. Now, he’s facing a man whose smile could stop traffic, and Nicky is in no way prepared.

He's gone for his holster in the middle of a gunfight, and all he’s pulled out is a slingshot.

Right. It’s time for a regroup. Time to get control of himself and salvage this dinner. “So. How often do you come here?”

Okay. That could have gone better.

By some miracle, Joe seems to be either willing to overlook Nicky’s swan dive into verbal mediocrity, or somehow hasn’t noticed it.

“Two or three times a month. It’s great food, and it’s on my way home from work.” He idly scratches his bearded cheek, thinking. “That’s how you knew my name, isn’t it? You heard me talking to Layla.”

Nicky smiles. He’s trying for charming but has no way of knowing if that’s where he ended up. Wisely, given his track record so far, Nicky just nods.

“You speak Arabic?” Joe’s eyebrows have gone up like he’s impressed, and Nicky wishes he didn’t have to wipe that look away because being the focus of it is making the back of his neck sweat.

“No. No no. I speak exactly as much as Layla’s taught me.”

Something at the edges of Joe’s smile crumples in a way Nicky usually associates with adult women seeing puppies. He _thinks_ that’s a good thing.

“She taught you?” Joe asks.

“Teaches me, or at least tries to. A phrase here or there for politeness."

Joe’s brow furrows, and Nicky crosses his arms over his chest to keep from reaching across the table to smooth away the little crease it makes between his eyebrows.

“You picked up my name, though?”

A whisper of hope blossoms in Nicky’s chest, enough to make him bold enough to try another smile as he shrugs. “She fusses at me, too. So I can recognize ‘you look tired, you need to eat more,’ and I know where my name usually goes when she says it to me. I took a chance and guessed your name might go in the same place." 

Joe’s expression is unreadable. “And the music—“

“You were whistling,” Nicky says.

In all honesty, calling it whistling is charitable. It had been off-key enough to sound like someone stepping on the paw of a smallish mammal. But fuck if Nicky doesn’t find even the memory of it charming right now.

“Right.”

Nicky can’t resist knowing if he’d been right about everything he told Joe the night before. “The book?”

Joe pulls it out of the pocket of his raincoat.

Nicky tries hard, he tries _so_ hard, not to pump his fist in triumph. He settles for clenching the hand tucked mostly tucked under the opposite bicep. 

“You just picked up clues from my walk home?”

“And the train.”

Rocking his chair onto its back legs, Joe just looks at him for a second. Then, draping one arm over the chair back, he smiles a whole new smile, a little one that feels like a secret just for Nicky.

For the space of a blink, Nicky imagines a truly debauched scene of this gorgeous man draped, naked, across his bed, with a shaft of warm, afternoon sunlight falling across his back. Another blink, and it’s gone.

Joe doesn’t even seem to be talking to Nicky when he says, softly, “Really fucking sexy.”

Yes, it had been, but how would Joe know? He couldn’t possibly sense what Nicky had been imagining. That was nothing but a daydream, not written on his face. Still, Nicky’s heart stops for a second. “What did you say?”

“I—“

“Nicky!” Layla sounds surprised and pleased to see him. “Did you order? You’re working too hard, let me get you something.”

Joe laughs, “It’s nice to know she’s looking out for us. Do you know what you want?”

What he wants is to go back five seconds and hear what Joe was about to say, but there’s no good way to do that right now. By the time they’ve ordered, paid, and brought their food back to the table, the moment has well and truly passed. Trying to get an answer at this point would involve Nicky actually having to ask, “So, did you mean _I’m_ really fucking sexy or…?” He just can’t make himself do it. Not when he was just starting to recover from his earlier disasters.

Instead, Nicky asks him about the book, which one of the stories is his favorite. They talk about the nature of family, of loss and endurance. 

Sometimes, when Joe talks, he leans forward in his chair as if he has to get closer to Nicky to make his point. It’s everything Nicky can do not to kiss the tip of his nose.

Joe laughs easily, but quietly, as though it’s his private joke, and he’s willing to let Nicky in on it. 

Half an hour into their conversation, Nicky gets a text from Andy, which is enough to get them discussing work. Joe talks about teaching, about translation work, and the difficult tightrope walk between maintaining the piece's form while still honoring the emotion. 

After nearly an hour and a half of sitting and talking, Nicky realizes that his feeling during this conversation is familiar. Not from any meeting or talk he can remember, though, not even from a date. After a minute, Nicky pinpoints the reference in his memory. Talking with Joe feels like being in a car that’s going just a little too fast around a curve on a back road, in the middle of a warm, summer night, all the windows down and the perfect song playing.

“What?” Joe asks, and Nicky realizes he’s been staring, probably with a ridiculous look on his face, for at least the last thirty seconds.

“Nothing,” Nicky says. “Just something you said, bringing up memories.”

“Good ones?”

Nicky nods. “Good ones,” he says and takes another bite of his food.

After a few minutes of eating in companionable silence, Joe starts to fiddle with his fork. 

“Look, I know the time for saying this is long past, but I want to apologize for putting your name and number in my phone. And for keeping it there way too long. There’s no excuse, really,” he has another bite of his chicken. “I was just curious, and I’m bad at moving on from things if they interest me.”

Later, Nicky will look back on what he says next and decide the universe felt the need to even the score after Joe’s ‘really fucking sexy’ remark, but that frankly, it seriously fucking overcorrected.

“If I tell you this story, does that mean I won’t interest you anymore, and you’ll move on?” 

Damn. So, so much worse than, ’That would make me Nicky.’ He’s ready to pick up his phone, wave goodnight to Layla, and walk out of there with the last shreds of his dignity in a to-go bag when the universe course corrects again.

Joe had been reaching for his drink when Nicky spoke, and instead of picking it up, his fingers brush the side of it, and the glass goes sideways onto his plate. The water running off the table would have been bad enough, but the glass also manages to hit someone’s fork and send a clump of chicken, tahini, and hot sauce catapulting onto Joe’s shirt, just above his heart. It spatters across his chest.

Seeing the water coming, Nicky has pushed back and is grabbing for the roll of paper towels on the table beside them. He looks up to see Joe trying to decide whether to clean himself or his side of the table. 

“I can do this,” Nicky says. “There’s a bathroom—“

“I know—“

“You deal with that,” he gestures at Joe’s probably irredeemably fucked white button-down shirt. “I’ll take care of everything here.” He smiles at Joe with the kind of reassuring, confident manner that’s only possible during someone else’s disaster.

Joe looks like Nicky has just promised him the moon. “Thanks, I’ll be right back."

Armed with the paper towels, Nicky manages to get the water soaked up, and the table cleared off. Rick brings over a container, just a little more of what they’d been eating. “You don’t have to—“

“I know I don’t,” Ricks says. “It’s my shop. I don’t _have_ to do anything but pay my taxes and listen to my mom. This is just something I _want_ to do.” He smiles and pats Nicky on the shoulder before heading into the back room.

When Nicky sits back down at the table, it’s like the mess never happened. The same cannot be said for his appalling conversational choices.

True, he _could_ have come off more desperate, if he’d really tried. It probably would have involved batting his eyelashes or doing something obscene with his straw. Short of those extremes, he seems to have hit the conversational equivalent of heart-eyes.

His only hope is that by now, they’ve both stepped in it enough times to form some kind of mutual amnesty pact. 

After a minute or two goes by, Nicky pulls his phone from his pocket and answers Andy’s earlier text. He thumbs through his email messages before pulling up the daily crossword. When he’s finished his first pass through the clues, Nicky rechecks the time and sees that more than five minutes have passed since Joe headed for the bathroom.

He’s not worried, exactly. What are the chances Joe left through the emergency exit near the bathroom and is halfway home by now? Thirty? Thirty-five percent? Hardly worth considering, he thinks, the tenth time he tries to lean far enough out of his chair to see down the back hall. He tries reassuring himself with the fact that Joe’s raincoat still hangs over the back of his chair. Still, his inner Worst-Case Narrator reminds him that Joe might have counted on Rick and Layla holding onto it for him if he bolted. 

What eventually gets Nicky out of his chair is the thought that, if Joe has bailed on him, Nicky would rather know soon enough to still get home relatively early. 

The sooner he’s home, the bigger head-start he can get on staring at the ceiling in self-loathing.

Nicky can hear the water running as he approaches the bathroom. He’s going to take that as a good sign.

“Joe?” he says, tapping on the door with a knuckle. “Do you ne—“

The door opens as Joe says, “I don’t know how I’m somehow making it worse.”

Nicky doesn’t have an answer for that. He also doesn’t have an answer for why his mouth has suddenly gone bone dry. Nicky would be hard-pressed to have an answer for anything right now, including his own name.

Clearly, Joe’s spent the entire time he’s been in the bathroom swabbing at his shirt with damp paper towels and a clean, wet rag that Rick probably brought him. Nicky knows that, because by now, the entire front of Joe’s shirt, Joe’s _white_ shirt, is soaked through, plastered to his chest, and nearly transparent. 

It’s so much more obscene than if he’d taken it off and were standing there shirtless.

Nicky should be meeting Joe’s eyes, talking to his face, but he absolutely cannot focus on anything else. His jaw has gone slack, one hand raised as though he might reach out and run his fingers over the wet fabric if he could summon just a little more focus.

It isn’t until Joe calls him by name that Nicky looks up and sees his face. 

That only makes it worse. 

Joe is staring back at Nicky. His eyes keep flicking to Nicky’s mouth, and there’s color high on his cheeks.

Nicky doesn’t even see Joe move. One breath, he’s standing in the doorway, dumbstruck, the next breath, he’s inside the bathroom with his back braced against the closed door, and Joe’s left hand still fisted in his shirt. Joe leans in, close enough that Nicky can feel the heat of his blush.

For a second or two, they just stand there, breathing. Something flickers behind Joe’s eyes, and Nicky realizes that Joe is giving him an opening to say no as if there’s a chance in hell that Nicky doesn’t want this. 

Clearly, they’re going to need to work on their communication skills.

Nicky grabs Joe’s shirt in both hands and hauls him in the last few inches.

Nothing in Nicky’s romantic life has prepared him for the experience of kissing this man. 

Nothing ever could. 

Joe moans, a sound Nicky can feel vibrating against his skin, then softens, opening under Nicky's mouth like a mystery solved. Nicky licks into the kiss, sliding his hands around to clutch at Joe’s back. The noise he makes is undeniably a whimper; the sound Joe makes in reply is a growl. Nicky can feel Joe’s hands skim up the back of his neck and grip his hair, trying to get Nicky somehow closer.

For an hour, Nicky’s wanted to taste Joe’s lower lip, sink his teeth into it, then soothe the bites with his tongue. It’s so much better than he’d imagined. He keeps waiting for this frantic, aching need to pass, to get some handle on this, and it keeps not happening. Nicky wants to map Joe’s body with his mouth. Feeling one last stroke of Joe’s tongue against his own, Nicky tugs Joe’s collar open and ducks his head, sucking a bruising kiss into the newly-exposed skin.

Joe chooses that moment to slot one leg between Nicky’s thighs and dig his fingers into Nicky’s lower back, sending him rocking forward. 

Nicky groans, startled at how hard he is in his jeans and realizing just how much he’s been ignoring the rest of his body to focus on licking every possible taste from Joe’s mouth. 

Joe’s hands tug Nicky’s shirt free of his jeans, and he sucks in a breath, feeling Joe’s fingers brush against the skin of his hips. This is good. This is so good; why isn’t he doing the same thing? That seems like a mistake he should remedy. 

Nicky doesn’t pull Joe’s entire shirt free, choosing instead to work the two lowest buttons open and slide one hand inside, his palm flat and stroking across Joe’s belly and hip.

Gasping, Joe drops his forehead to Nicky’s. “We—“ anything else is cut off as Nicky takes the hand that isn’t inside Joe’s shirt and sweeps it down Joe’s zipper, cupping the length of him.

“What was that?” Nicky smirks. He’ll pay for that later, make no mistake. He’s looking forward to it.

Canting his hips to give Joe something to grind against, Nicky moves his hand back up to start working the rest of Joe’s buttons open.

“Nicky, I—“ 

He puts his palm flat against Joe’s mouth, still opening the last few buttons with his other hand. “I just want ninety seconds.”

Joe reaches up and pulls Nicky’s hand away from his face. “It only takes you ninety seconds?” 

Cheeky little shit. He covers Joe’s mouth again. “Just for that,” Nicky says, pinching one of Joe’s nipples and giving it a politely vicious twist. His cock twitches as he hears Joe hiss at the sensation. “Just for that, the first time I have you under me, I’m going to take my time.” He leans in close so he can whisper in Joe’s ear. “By the time I finally let you finish, you’ll have tears in your eyes from begging.”

Joe makes a sound exactly like he’s swallowed his tongue. Most of Nicky’s earlier attempts at smooth conversation may currently be displayed on a chart of increasing severity of trash fires, but he knows a chance at redemption when he sees one, and really? Never let it be said that Nicky doesn’t stick the landing when it really matters.

He spends the next minute and a half molding his hands to the curves of Joe’s waist, brushing his thumbs over the lowest ribs and kissing a slow, deliberate line down Joe’s chest. 

“Your hands are warm,” Joe says, tangling his fingers in Nicky’s hair, arching his body into each kiss. “Nicky,” he says, drawing it out like a plea and a curse. 

Nicky presses one last kiss just above the waistband of Joe’s jeans before standing up. Joe hauls him back in for another kiss Nicky can feel clear to his toes. He’s trying to refasten Joe’s buttons, but every time Joe kisses him, Nicky’s fingers stop working. 

Joe tugs Nicky’s head back, exposing the long column of his throat. Groaning, he finds a spot along the side of Nicky's neck and kisses it, bites at it, licks it. Nicky’s never felt more like prey than he does right now.

If he weren’t getting devoured by the most attractive man he’s ever set eyes on, Nicky might feel a bit of a twinge about how fucking hot he finds it.

There’s a clang from the kitchen, and it seems to shake some sense into them. Joe has his face buried in the curve of Nicky’s neck and shoulder, breathing him in. Trying to calm his racing heart, Nicky releases the fabric of Joe’s shirt he has clenched in his fists and smooths it with his palms. Joe lifts his head, and for the first time since Joe pulled Nicky through the door, they’re looking at each other with clear eyes.

“Don’t get me wrong—“

“I know,” Nicky says. "Not here.” 

“Right." 

“I’ll go out first?” Nicky’s tucking his shirt back in, trying to ignore the tender pulse of bite marks on his neck, far too high to be hidden by his shirt.

Joe nods. 

A peek into the hall shows no one else around. Just before Nicky swings the door open enough to walk out, he hears Joe say his name.

Nicky turns to face him. “Hmm?” 

Joe’s hands cup his face, pulling him close enough for one last kiss, practically chaste by comparison. 

“I’ll see you back at the table.” 

  
Out on the street, having called goodbyes to Layla and Rick, they stand facing each other. 

Nicky figures they have probably three seconds before the inevitable awkwardness settles fully and becomes an immovable object between them. He needs to act fast; there will be time to replay everything he said and feel mortified for it later. 

“This was not what I expected from tonight.” 

Joe’s eyebrows go up. “Oh?”

“When I came through that door, I didn’t even know if you were even interested in men. I thought if you were, and if you were as clever and quick as you were over the phone, that maybe you would agree to count this as a first date.”

“I think that’s a safe assumption.” Joe’s eyes are crinkling at the corners, his cheeks dimpling as he grins. 

“Maybe if I were charming enough, you would agree to a second date."

“If only,” Joe says, and Nicky wants to flick him on the ear. 

“That was my best outcome. Perhaps try for a kiss, too.”

“You didn’t think I’d pull you into the bathroom and try to climb you.”

“Very foolish of me, I know.” Nicky can’t help but grin.

“Imagine if we’d planned ahead for this.”

Nicky thinks of the biggest thing keeping him from dragging Joe home with him. “I’d have canceled my early-morning call with the team in London.”

“I’d have worn a tighter shirt.”

For a second, there’s a buzzing in Nicky’s ears; he thinks it might be the sound of all his blood rushing to his dick. He tries to shake it off.

Deprived of blood flow, Nicky’s brain is working on autopilot. 

“I want to say, ‘Come home with me,’” he says, feeling the flush creep up the back of his neck. “We could be at my house in five minutes and finish what we started, just the two of us. Not that you would. Not that you’d even want to, or are even interested in—” He reaches out and smooths the collar of Joe’s raincoat. “But that’s. That’s what I want to say. More than anything.”

Joe puts his hand over Nicky’s on his lapel. “If you did, I wouldn’t think twice.”

Smelling something like victory in the air, even despite Nicky's ill-fated attempts at charm, his internal censor decides it can be of no further help and fucks off entirely.

“I would be breaking my promise, though, to take my time with you. How can I take all the time I want if I have to get up early and leave you there in my bed while I go to work?”

Joe smirks. “You’d still want me in your bed the next morning? No kicking me out when we finish?” 

“I’d still want you in my bed when we’re very old men.” 

Nicky wonders if his internal censor has gone off on holiday with his chill. Maybe they’re on a beach somewhere and will send him a selfie of themselves with fruity drinks—a postcard, perhaps.

Joe, beautiful, kind, compassionate Joe, blinks a few times and says, “We’re going to come back to that later,” and then moves on. Nicky doesn’t deserve this man, but oh, he wants to. He winks at Nicky. “If I was still twenty-five, I’d say we should do it anyway.”

“If I were still twenty-five, we’d have been doing it on a couch my roommate found on the curb. The bed is nicer.”

“Then we wait. But not for too long?”

Nicky shakes his head. “Tomorrow?”

“Family dinner. The next night?”

As far as Nicky can remember, he’s free. “That would be good.”

“Send me an address?” 

Nicky nods. Joe steps closer, until they’re almost touching, then leans in to kiss him again. It’s perfect and sweet; Nicky wants to learn all this man’s kisses. 

It seems the secret to maintaining any personal dignity around Joe is to concentrate on the physical rather than trying to woo him with conversation. Finally, Nicky has a plan: Get Joe so fuck drunk he doesn’t notice when Nicky says something asinine. 

It’s a solid plan. Of course, Nicky will have to keep doing it until he finally gets over being awkward, but that’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make. 

“I’m going now,” Joe says. “I really am.” 

He really isn’t.

Walking away from Joe when he’s standing there, debauched and well kissed, his lower lip pink and full, is one of the hardest things Nicky can remember doing. On the way home, he tries to remind himself this is a good thing. 

  
His phone buzzes as he walks into the house. It’s a text from Joe. Reading it, He feels warm from head to toe, and his face hurts from smiling.

' _i made a separate contact for you. it just felt wrong using the other one. crazy?_ '

'Sentimental, not crazy. I still owe you a story.'

_‘yeah. funny thing - turns out that’s not why i went'_


	4. i am thinking of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess is looking at Joe like he left his brain in his other jeans.
> 
> “You went on a date with a guy whose name you found on a bathroom wall.” She’s not asking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience while Friday and Saturday didn't go remotely according to plan. The good news is that I spent part of that time getting us closer to the end. As part of that, I've upped the chapter count. It might go up again by one or two, but we'll see. For now, I'm going to go answer comments and write more and remind you guys that you're *amazing* and I'm so damn lucky. Thank you all!

  
Jess is looking at Joe like he left his brain in his other jeans.

“You went on a date with a guy whose name you found on a bathroom wall.” She’s not asking.

“In fairness, it didn’t start as a date.”  
  
“That doesn’t make it less weird. You could have said you were looking to meet someone; we would have helped you pick up a guy at a bar like normal desperate people. Wait—sushi?"

Joe rubs his forehead. Jess has her teeth in this, and that’s a terrible, terrible sign.

“Is this the sushi thing from before?” Of course, his sister would be the one who remembers an offhand comment, from four drinks into the evening, more than two years ago. Of course, she would.

Staring at the ceiling in silence, Joe scratches idly at the beard on his cheek, refusing to answer.

“You spent two years carrying this around, trying to figure it out, and then somehow ended up on a date with this guy. And now you’ve got a second date planned.”

“I told you this story because I thought you’d find it amusing, not so you could sit around and question my life choices.”

“Oh, it’s amusing. It’s _hilarious_. My big brother has spent the last forty-five minutes checking his phone every twenty seconds because of a guy he met through bathroom graffiti.”

“I have—“

“Every twenty seconds, Yusuf! For a while, I was actually timing it.” Joe wants to argue, but he can feel his fingers twitching, wanting to reach for his phone. He hates when she’s right even more than he hates when she says his name like that. “Besides,” she looks around, trying to find their server. "I’m your sister, I’m the only one allowed question your life choices, and I take the responsibility seriously. Help me find someone so we can get dessert. I’m going to need dessert for the rest of this.” 

Trying to hold anything back would just be delaying the inevitable; he’s never been able to keep anything from her for long. He starts from the moment he left the office and doesn’t stop until he tells her about the goodnight texts. 

Well, he does keep a couple of tiny things back. Jess doesn’t need to know about the noises Nicky makes when Joe gives him a thigh to grind against, and the words Nicky said to him, the promise to take his time, those are only for Nicky and Joe.

If she can tell that he’s tucking a few details away as a secret treasure, by some miracle, Jess lets it go.

“So,” she’s licking the last of her dessert from the back of her fork. “What did the sushi thing turn out to be?”

Joe knows what he must look like, resigned, and trying to maintain dignity in the face of someone who is about to be an insufferable victor. 

“Seriously, Yusuf? Seriously?” 

“Could you not say that _exactly_ like mom? Please? Between the mess at the table and the—“ he gestures as if to encompass something undefinable “—thing in the bathroom, we didn’t have a lot of time. I’ve been waiting to figure this out for two years, Jess, I can wait until tomorrow night.”

Jess stares at him. “You’re not going to get this story tomorrow night.”

He’s frowning. “That’s when our date is.”

“Oh, you’ll still have your date, just not the story.” She pulls the last half of his dessert across the table and digs her fork in. “Can we go back to the part where he said he’d want you in his bed when you’re old men?"

Joe ignores the way that makes his heart clench, and his neck get hot. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean to say it out loud. Plus, he let it go when I slipped up, so I said we’d come back that later.”

“And you should, but _you and I_ are going to talk about it _now._ "

Jess has backed him into a corner, and he knows he’s about to end up with the mental equivalent of classic defensive wounds. The fire alarm is right over Jess’s shoulder. He could pull it, lose Jess in the ensuing confusion, and be home before she knew where he’d gone. It’s a pretty fantasy, Joe’s heart yearns for it.

He wonders how much longer he has before he can reach for his phone again.

At home, Joe reassures himself that there’s nothing wrong with waiting until he’s in bed to text Nicky. He just wants to give it his undivided attention instead of trying to send a message with one hand and drag the recycling out with the other. This way, it would be a reward. A reward he’d get in bed. Naked. A naked, in-bed reward in the form of Nicky.

Does Joe imagine Nicky is here next to him while they text? Of course, he does. It’s been a long day, and he’s earned this kind of indulgence, but Nicky doesn’t need to know that.

' _when you ask me about my family tomorrow, i’ll tell you my sister is great and my best friend. remind me that sometimes she’s the worst_.'

‘Are you sure she’s not just looking out for you?’

' _she can do both_ '

‘I feel like there’s a story, and I can’t wait to hear it. Tomorrow still good?'

' _going to need it after tonight_ '

‘Poor Joe, I’ll take care of you.'

Joe would give large sums of money, extraneous organs, and his little sister if it meant hearing Nicky say those words in his ear.

'Food allergies or restrictions? No pressure, but I need to know in the next ten minutes.’ Nicky hits ‘Send’ and goes back to the screen with his grocery order. 

‘ _you don’t have to feed me_ ’

He stares at the words and pictures his mother’s face if she found out he’d had a guest in his home and hadn’t tried to feed them. It's uncomfortably easy to imagine the scolding voice and disappointed hand gestures.

‘If you’re coming to my house, there will be food. Call it an Italian cultural requirement.’

Once he has Joe’s details, and places the order, Nicky sends Joe another text with his address and a time.

‘ _sounds great. what can i bring?_ ’

Yourself. That smile. Maybe that white shirt, if you’re not particularly attached to it, and wouldn’t mind seeing it in shreds on the floor.

‘Whatever you want to drink.’

Herein lies the danger of text-based communication. Nicky has time to think about his answer; he has the luxury of editing. It keeps his brain in front of his mouth, something he doesn't manage to do in conversations. So far, Nicky is making a good impression, but he’s not out of danger. The chance that he could turn into a cautionary tale the minute he’s actually in Joe’s presence is very real. He can see it, lurking in the back of the room like it didn’t do the reading and is hoping not to get called on.

Tomorrow, Nicky will go in, prop his feet on Andy’s desk, and tell her about his date. Dates. 

He’ll tell her about the phone calls and how Pocket Guy became Yusuf became Joe-who-kisses-like-he-knows-all-my-secrets. If she doesn’t interrupt, or give him too much shit, he might even tell her about the verbal disaster he turned into the minute their eyes met.

Not today, though. If Nicky lets it slip today, she will haul him out for coffee and want to talk about it. While they’re gone, Nicky’s work will continue to lurk, not getting any more manageable, and he’d get home even later than usual. Andy is one of his favorite people in the world, but he’s surprisingly at peace with keeping her in ignorance if it means having time to shower before he has to start cooking.

  
He’s opened all the windows, just to enjoy the breeze, so he can hear footsteps as Joe comes up the front stairs. It’s not his intention to open the door before Joe even pushes the doorbell; that’s just how it happens.

Startled, Joe looks up and sees him in the doorway and smiles. There’s a stab under one of Nicky’s fingernails, and he realizes he’s been gripping the door hard enough to give himself a splinter. Was Joe this attractive two nights ago? He couldn’t have been; it seems impossible. 

  
_Why did I let you leave at the end of the night? Why did I not drag you home and take you to bed and why are we not still there?_

“Hey.”

He’s inordinately proud of himself for getting through the greeting without a replay of ‘That would make me Nicky.’

“Hi.”

The irreversible awkwardness timer has started again, and Nicky decides now isn’t the time for him to suddenly develop a reasonable level of restraint and caution. He steps forward, close enough to reach Joe, and kisses him. 

“This is still okay?”

Joe nods, smiling. This time he’s the one who starts the kiss, a pleased little hum in his throat. He’s carrying a bag in one hand, but the other is free to wrap around Nicky, splaying out against his back and pulling him closer. It sends them both a bit off-balance, and they stumble into the railing. Whatever is in Joe’s bag slams into the wrought iron.

Because we’re talking about Nicky and Joe, this is the point at which Nicky would expect the bottle to shatter, spilling something sticky and artificially colored all over everything. It doesn’t, and as much as Nicky wants to believe that the universe is cutting them a break, he knows better. It's merely lulling them into a false sense of security.

Fuck it; Nicky’s not wasting time when he could be kissing Joe worrying about what future moments might hold. He sighs, fisting his hands in the fabric of Joe's shirt, and feels all the tension of the day draining out of him.

It isn’t until Joe groans and arches into him, sucking at Nicky’s lower lip before licking into his kiss again, that Nicky remembers where they are. On his front stoop, in full view of the neighborhood.

“Come inside,” he says.

“Afraid your neighbors will see you kissing a boy?”

Nicky doesn’t realize his internal censor might still be on holiday until it’s too late. “Fuck seeing us kissing. I hope they do.” He sweeps his tongue across Joe’s lower lip before deepening the kiss again. “But if we stand here doing this for much longer, I’m going to drop to my knees and suck you where you stand. And the sound you’ll make just before you shout my name is just for me, not whichever neighbor is recording it on his phone.”

When Nicky’s internal censor gets back, it better have brought him a hell of a present.

He takes a mental step back at Joe’s startled look. He's said something like that before, but it was behind the closed bathroom door, and quite a bit less anatomically specific. Again, Nicky has gone for seductive and seriously overshot the mark. He’s preparing to tell Joe that it’s okay to leave, that Nicky won’t blame him, that it was fun, but—

A wicked smile spreads across Joe’s face, and he growls. 

“I see your point,” Joe says as he starts backing Nicky through the door into the living room. Once they’re inside, Joe flails his arm behind him until he manages to catch the edge of the door and swing it closed. They kiss a while longer before Joe pulls back. He opens his mouth to say something to Nicky, but the only sound they hear is Joe’s stomach growling so loud Nicky swears it echoes off the high ceilings. 

Nicky can’t hold in the laugh. “What was it you were you going to say?”

“That kissing you is incredible, somehow better than I remember. And also that I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I’m starving.” He shrugs, not even trying for sheepish. Nicky can’t resist one last, simple kiss.

“Come into the kitchen.” Okay, just one more kiss. “You can help me finish.” Okay, one more, but this is the last one, he means it.

Joe saves Nicky from himself by following the smell to the kitchen. Nicky takes the bag from him and holds it up, a question on his face.

“Wine, if you want, but also a mint tea I love that's perfect over ice.”

“I look forward to it.”

Nicky manages to finish preparing dinner without cutting off a finger, even though every time he looks up, Joe is in his kitchen being very distractingly Joe. 

Out of sheer desperate self-preservation, Nicky sets him to finishing the asparagus, because at least then Joe will be facing the counter instead of staring at Nicky. It isn’t until he looks up and is confronted by Joe’s ass in those jeans for the third time that Nicky realizes how badly his plan has backfired.

“How—How was your day?” Nicky asks, trying to distract himself.

Joe answers the question seriously and sincerely; Nicky can tell that by the look on his face. Of course, Nicky misses least half of the actual words Joe says because fucking hell are those jeans _painted_ on him? Nicky doesn’t _want_ to cut them off Joe later (that’s a lie), but he will if that's what it takes to get Joe out of them.

With the asparagus on a plate, Joe turns to him.

“What’s left? What can I do?”

_Stay_

By some miracle, that stays on the inside. Maybe Nicky’s internal censor has returned with a tan and an unfortunate collection of souvenir drinks glasses. Maybe not. He decides not to test it.

“Drinks? The tea first, perhaps?”

Nicky takes the food to the table, grateful again that he took the time to find matching silverware and put out some linens. 

After their earlier fumbles (Nicky’s earlier fumbles, let’s just call it like it is), the conversation while they eat is so effortless it makes Nicky wary. Joe talks about his family, his sisters, especially.

“I’m supposed to remind you that one of them is the worst.”

Joe groans, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “She really is.”

“What did she do that was so terrible?”

For a minute, Joe half-stares at a spot high on the wall behind Nicky's shoulder, considering his words. “See, the problem is that if I say this aloud, it just sounds like she’s a reasonable sister who looks out for her family and wants us to be safe and happy. And I see now that she did that on purpose.”

Nicky can’t stop the laugh that escapes from him. “She sounds diabolical.”

“You have no idea. What about you?”

“Am I diabolical?”

“I’m pretty sure you are.” Joe laughs. “But I meant your family. What are they like?” 

Nicky blinks. On the one hand, it seems promising that Joe is asking about Nicky’s life, that he seems to care about more than just getting naked and all the ensuing fun. On the other hand, he could be just asking to be polite, because Joe is the kind of sweetheart who wants even his casual hook-ups to have a good time and dress warmly on the way home. 

With that in mind, Nicky gives a few details, enough to be specific, but not enough to bore Joe. He goes a little deep when talking about his sister because she’s always been Nicky’s hero. “She taught me to take pictures. We would practice framing subjects and getting the best light. I kept it up as a hobby; she’s made it her career.”

“Do you have anything of hers?”

“Yes, but we don’t have to, Joe. We can just—“

Joe looks almost hurt, as though he thinks Nicky might be dismissing him. He has the same look Nicky had before dinner. Like he’s resigning himself to a night that’s less than what he wanted.

“My favorite of hers is hanging in the living room,” Nicky says.

Half an hour later, they’re still in the living room, looking at a few framed examples of Nicky’s sister’s photography. 

“Nicky, these are amazing.”

“I’ll tell her you said so.” He smiles and thinks about telling his sister about how Joe loves her pictures—telling her about Joe.

It’s quiet for a second, the moment growing lazy and slow as Joe reaches out and takes the glass from Nicky’s hand. He sets both their glasses on a stack of Roman generals' biographies before turning to take Nicky’s face in his hands and kiss him.

It's just as perfect as the kisses earlier were. Nicky can feel Joe smiling against his mouth.

“What are you—“ the rest is cut off by the sound of Nicky’s mobile. He recognizes the ring tone.

“It’s my boss. I’ll call her later.” Nicky wraps his arms around Joe’s neck, pulling him close for another kiss. He can feel his phone vibrate when the voicemail comes in and then immediately start ringing again. “She probably thought I just couldn’t find my phone. Come here.” 

When the phone rings again, Joe starts laughing; his mouth still pressed to Nicky’s 

“Give me just a minute. I just need to—“

“Go, I’ll be here.”

Nicky answers the call just before it goes to voicemail. “At the very least, you need to be on fire to be calling right now.”

“Nicky, how do you deal with these people every day and not kill them?”

“Who?”

“Those idiots in Manchester.”

“They’re not idiots, Andy. They’re potential partners, valuable potential partners, okay? Now, tell me what the idiots have done.”

Joe wanders through the living room while Andy explains the current crisis. He’s looking at Nicky's books, Nicky’s pictures, the strange assortment of things he’d collected from each one of his mother’s postings. There are those who believe in eclectic interior decorating, and then there are foreign service members. 

About the time Nicky tries, for the third time, to get out the phrase, “The thing is Andy—“ Joe waves for Nicky to sit on the couch then brings in their plates from the table. He hands Nicky the last of his dinner and sits at the other end, his plate in his lap and one of Nicky’s books in his hand.

Nicky puts the call on mute. “I’m sorry, this isn’t how I wanted tonight to happen.”

“Hey,” Joe smiles, holding up the book and waving it a little. “I have a book, and a gorgeous man cooked me dinner, it's already a better night most.”

He can feel the tips of his ears getting hot. “Gorgeous? Tell me— shit.” He hits the mute button, not sure how many times Andy’s said his name. “No, I’m here. Did you ask them about the contracts?”

The fifth time Nicky tries to get Andy off the phone, Joe takes their empty plates into the kitchen and comes back with a full glass of wine for him. 

It would be nice to pretend, Nicky thinks, that he gives Joe a suave wink, instead of a look that is probably full of a wildly inappropriate amount of adoration for their second date. “Five minutes,” he mouths.

Joe smiles down at him, and it’s like nothing Nicky’s ever seen. It’s not big or flashy, not a lot of teeth or big dimples, not smirking or plotting. One side of Joe’s mouth has lifted just a little; a few fine lines crease his forehead as his eyebrows lift almost imperceptibly. 

It’s a soft smile, fond, affectionate, and warm enough that Nicky can feel it in his fingers. It’s a smile that isn’t making big declarations, not because it doesn’t want to, but because it doesn’t have to.

Joe sweeps a few stray hairs from Nicky’s forehead, still smiling, but Nicky can only stare, knowing no one's ever looked at him like this.

Stepping away, Joe punches the pillow at his end of the couch into shape and settles back with his book. Nicky knows if he caught Joe’s attention, that smile might still be there, waiting for him. 

“Nicky? Nicky!"

“Damn it, I'm right here, Andy. I heard you. After you said that, did you apologize to them?”

“Did I have to?”

“Probably it would be a good start."

Nicky’s losing track of time; he’s not sure how many times he’s looked at Joe, apologized, and promised only five more minutes. It seems like Andy might be winding down, but he’s thought that before. Slumping, Nicky throws his arm over his eyes and props his feet up on the coffee table, grateful he’s wearing clean socks with no holes in them.

“That sounds reasonable to me, did they not think so?”

“They seemed to think I was trying to be difficult.”

“Did they.”

“Fuck you, Nicky.”

“I know. Now tell me about Stefan so I can help fix this.”

“Which one is Stefan?”

While Andy searches her memory for a man she’s spoken to nearly every day for the past month, Nicky puts the phone on mute again and turns to look at Joe. “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave. We can try this again in a night or two.”

“Do you want me to go?” Joe asks.

Nicky hauls his courage back from staring forlornly out the window, waiting for his dignity to return, and takes a chance. “No. I don’t.”

“Good. Because I don’t want it either.”

Joe moves himself a few inches closer to Nicky and gestures for Nicky to get his feet off the table, patting his thigh. Nicky’s not entirely sure what Joe’s asking, but he takes a chance and slides his feet onto Joe’s lap.

“Joe, it’s not fair for you to spend your evening listening to your date talk to someone else.”

One warm, broad hand settles over Nicky’s foot. “Let’s not start keeping score. It’s a bitch trying to stop later.” He sweeps his thumb back and forth over the curve of Nicky’s ankle and goes back to his book.

Over the next hour, they end up with their backs against the couch's opposite arms, their legs tangled together in between them. One of Joe’s hands is still resting, warm and solid, on top of Nicky’s ankle. He’s been asleep for at least the last fifteen minutes, his head lolled against the sofa cushions. Nicky’s been keeping his voice down, trying not to wake him.

He really had hoped it would go unnoticed.

“Nicky. I have no idea why your voice just got really low and soft, but I’m going to believe, for both our sakes, that it’s not because you’re trying to have phone sex with your boss.”

“Fuck you, Andy.”

“Yeah, I know. Listen, we’ve banged our heads against this for hours and not gotten anywhere. I hate to do this—“ Nicky sighs, wishing like hell she actually did hate to do this “—but I’ve got you on a 9:30 flight to Manchester. You can go business class if that helps.”

It doesn’t.

“On one condition.” He’s not really in much of a position to be delivering ultimatums, but he’s cranky and tired, and for the last four hours, he's watched his date going about the business of being adorable but not being able to do anything about it. “You’re coming with me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Do you remember when we were in Chicago that time, and we agreed that nothing said after ten at night goes on the work record?”

“I’m not going to like this. Yeah, I remember.”

“Reason number one you’re coming with me is that you need to meet these guys so they can become people to you instead of obstacles.”

“What’s reason number two.”

“Because if I have to spend the next four days not getting to have sex with the gorgeous man asleep in my house right now? Then you get to spend the next four days not getting to have sex with the gorgeous woman asleep in _your_ house right now. Because I was on a _date_ , Andy.”

“Shit. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Would I still be getting on a plane tomorrow?”

Andy sighs. “Probably. I’ll see you at the airport. 'Night, Nicky.”

“You too, Boss.”

  
He should wake Joe up. It’s nearly midnight on a weeknight. If he wakes Joe now, he can be home in bed before it gets much later, and maybe only one of them will be utterly fucked for sleep tomorrow.

The problem with negotiating with yourself is that you know your weak spots, your tells. You also know that you’re always going to win, which doesn’t stop Nicky from trying. Three minutes. That’s the deal he makes with himself. He’ll sit here for three minutes, finish his drink, rest his hand on Joe’s leg, and pretend that this will be waiting for him when he gets back, instead of a pile of mail and an empty house.

It’s a lovely three minutes. So lovely Nicky stretches it to five. Then ten. He cuts himself off at fifteen but finally stops at twenty.

  
“Joe,” Nicky says, squeezing his lower leg. “Joe, wake up.”

It takes two or three more tries, but eventually, Joe comes awake with a start. Once he realizes where he is, Joe squints against the brightness of the overhead lights. “Time ’s it?”

“Midnight, or close to it.”

“Phone call over?”

Nicky nods. “That’s the good news.”

Joe squints again, still adjusting to the light. He looks at Nicky from one eye. “What’s the bad news?”

“I have to fly to England in the morning. I don’t expect I’ll be home before Monday.”

“You’ll call?”

Nicky’s chest feels tight around his heart. “I promise I’ll call.”

“That’s not so bad then.” He scrubs at his face with both hands, trying to clear his head. He sits for a second, elbows on his knees, and his fingers tangled in his hair. He finally blinks his eyes all the way open. “Right.”

“I can drive you home.”

Joe shakes his head, waving away Nicky’s offer. “I’ll get a ride.” On his feet again, Joe stretches his arms over his head, and Nicky can see a sliver of bare skin where his shirt has pulled free from his jeans. He had his mouth on that spot two nights ago, and now it’s about to walk out of his house.

Flicking through his phone, Joe sends a ride request, then as he's putting his shoes on, he points to the book he’d been reading earlier. “I’m borrowing that while you’re gone. It’s not you, but it’ll keep me company until you’re back.”

“I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay. It wasn’t what we planned, but I had a nice time.” 

Nicky is too tired and too irritated to worry about putting his best foot forward, or impressing Joe. He just says what's true. “I hoped— I wanted you to stay tonight. I really did.”

He steps into Joe’s space, taking hold of his wrists and nosing into the curve of Joe’s neck.

“I’ll put it on your tab, right under the story you still owe me.” He kisses Nicky’s temple.

Nicky tries to sigh, but that’s a terrible mistake. All it does is fill his nose with the smell of Joe, warm and soft with sleep. “Fuck.”

At the door, Nicky rests his forehead head against Joe’s. 

“Do you have to pack?” There’s that soft, fond smile again, and Nicky feels it like a punch to the chest.

“No,” Nicky shakes his head. “Not really. Working for Andy means sometimes there are last-minute trips like this. For the last eight years, I’ve always had a bag mostly packed.”

“I’ll get out of your way and let you get to bed, then.” 

How can Nicky say, ‘You could never be in my way, you’re the one I’m following,’ without sounding like a bad romance novel? 

Then again, maybe he doesn’t give a shit anymore. 

“Joe—“ 

“My ride will be here any minute. Are you going to let me leave without a kiss goodnight?”

Nicky cradles the back of Joe’s head in his palms, his thumbs in the hollows behind Joe’s ears, and pulls him in. He tries to kiss like Joe’s smile. No big declarations, just warmth and happiness, and the way being around Joe makes him feel. He kisses with the truth of how much he’s going to miss Joe, how beautiful Joe is, how nice it was to look up from his phone call and see Joe in his house like he belonged there. 

It’s just a kiss, so maybe that’s more than it can say, but Nicky tries anyway.

They stand in the open doorway and kiss some more, Nicky memorizing the feel of Joe’s mouth under his, that sinful lower lip. 

The car stops at the streetlight just four houses up from Nicky’s, but Nicky can’t resist one more kiss before Joe goes to meet it, gripping Joe’s upper arms and pulling him close. 

Turning, Joe heads down the first two steps, one of his arms still held in Nicky's grasp. 

Joe is, Nicky realizes, literally slipping through his fingers.

It’s a split second, the drag of Joe’s wrist bone through the circle of Nicky’s hand, and Nicky tightens his grip, catching Joe’s hand before it slides free.

“Stay."

Joe twists his wrist to grip Nicky’s forearm, sighs.

“Nicky.” He closes his eyes, forehead creased with something that’s almost pain. “Don’t make me say it. Please.”

He’s right, and they both know it. If Joe came back in the house, they’d stumble into bed and be asleep in seconds. Then tomorrow they’d wake up next to each other just in time to say goodbye again. This business trip will be hard enough without Nicky having to spend the time knowing for a fact what Joe looks like asleep on his pillows. 

Making Joe say ‘no’ out loud would just be cruel.

“I know.” It’s Nicky’s turn to sigh. 

Joe squeezes his wrist. “Soon.”

It's enough. It has to be.

' _home now. have a safe trip_ '

‘Remind me why this was the right decision?’

‘ _because you promised to take your time_ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, for everyone who loved her for the "Other people start fights; Nicky finishes them" line? BFF's also the one who suggested Andy cockblock them. See why she's so terrible and I love her so?


	5. imagine the dark hills I would have to cross to reach you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicky and Joe talk at least once a day, with a few texts in between. So far, they’ve been the highlight of Nicky’s trip. 
> 
> Joe called on his way home from work the first night, and tonight Nicky is keeping him company while he does laundry. It’s pleasingly, if oddly, domestic for two people who aren’t even on the same continent. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things:  
> 1) I realize this is the second chapter that starts with Joe talking to his sister, but I also realize his sister is awesome so, fuck it.
> 
> 2) As an apology that this chapter does not have them actually touching at any point, please accept my promise that the next chapter alone is 11,000 words and at least 5,000 of those are ones I wouldn't let my mom read. Also as an apology, please note that we've upped the chapter count to 7. I think that's where we'll stay.
> 
> In conclusion: pocketsushi otp.

“You had dinner and spent the evening on his couch, listening to him talk to his boss.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me again why I should like this guy? Because that’s a shitty thing to do to your date.”

“I don’t know. People make mistakes, Jess, and they deserve second chances. Besides, there are worse ways to spend an evening than sitting, reading a book with a beautiful man after an amazing meal.” Joe closes his eyes and thinks of the way Nicky had kissed him on the front step, and the look on Nicky’s face when Joe brought his plate to the couch, as though being cared for was unexpected and precious. “Mostly, though, because he makes me smile like this.”

She pauses, knife poised over the cutting board, watching him. A look of something fierce and soft creases her face. “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

“Let’s go back to the part where you didn’t actually get to talk to him much. We’re still counting that as a date, somehow?”

“Jess.”

“What? So, you’re perfectly content to sit there and just be next to him, barely cuddling for hours. But then when he asks you to spend the night doing the same exact thing, you decide to go home instead.”

Joe groans and buries his face in his hands.

“Am I wrong? Did you get the offer to see what he looks like being all soft with bedhead, twice, and _not_ take a Lyft home?”

“It was the right decision at the time.” His palms are muffling his words.

“Because if you’d stayed, neither of you would have been able to let the other one leave.”

“Exactly.”

"You’d both have gotten fired and nearly died of dehydration by now.”

He stares at her. “Some peoples’ sisters are kind to them.”

“No, they aren’t. Hey.” She nudges his shin with her foot. “It was the only grown-up choice. You did the right thing.”

“And yet you’re still tormenting me over it.”

Jess hands him a cucumber. “Yes, I am—peel that—because I’m your sister. Also, you looked like you needed to wallow a bit.”

“Just remember, I have a whole second sister I can go to for sympathy if you’re going to be like this.”

“Feel free; the baby’s teething this week.”

He kisses the top of her head, and she presses up into it. “Then what?”

“Then he flew to England. He sent me a message when he landed, and we talked when he got to his hotel.” He tosses the last of the peels into the compost bin and starts slicing the pile of vegetables.

“Make those thinner. Talked about what?”

“His boss, my boss. Movies and books. Dumb childhood stories.”

Jess is crumbling a brick of feta over a bowl. “You going to tell him the one with the oil paints, or should Tannie and I do it?"

He doesn’t stop slicing. “I will gut you like a fucking fish.”

“Mmhmm.” 

Joe reaches over her, scraping everything on the cutting board into the bowl.

“So.” He can tell, just by her tone, that he’s not going to like this. "Still no story?”

Joe sighs. “No, not yet.”

“I told you.”

Jess’s phone starts to vibrate on the counter. She presses the ‘answer’ button with the cleanest edge of one pinky finger. “Hey, Joe thinks you’ll be nicer to him.”

“He should have picked a week the baby isn’t teething.”

“That’s what I said.”

There’s a wail on the other end of the line and the sound of soft, soothing noises. “Did he get the story?”

Joe glares at Jess. “You told her?”

She looks dumbfounded. “Of course, I did. We’re your sisters.”

“Does Mom know?”

Jess holds her hands out. “If she does, I’m not the one who told her.” She turns her head toward the phone. “Tannie, did you say anything to mom?”

“Because I want this to be the only thing she asks me about for weeks? Besides, I’ve got money on it being something kinky, and I don’t want to have to tell her that when she asks.”

Joe’s mouth is suddenly very dry.

“No answer yet, by the way. Sushi Man is on a business trip.”

Burying his face in his palms, Joe listens to them discuss him as though he weren’t there.

Over the phone, Joe hears the sound of fabric against fabric, as though someone was moving a perfectly chubby baby from one hip to another. “We’re not getting an answer until he’s back then.”

Joe looks at the phone like he thinks his big sister can see his confused, incredulous face. “We’re going to end up talking every night. Why would this have to wait until he’s back?”

“Two dates and two phone calls?” she asks.

“Right.”

“No, it’s too early. You’re not hooked enough. If he gives you the end of the big story before you’re really attached, you might still behead him so you can take a new wife.”

Embarrassingly, it takes him a second to catch up. “You’re both horrible. Besides, I’m not sure how much more hooked I can be."

“Oh, Yusuf. I love you.”

“I love you too, Tan.”

The girls say their goodbyes, and Jess taps the “End” button.

“Come on, bring the burgers out on the balcony, and you can tell me about tonight’s phone call.”

He’s got the plate in one hand and a fistful of silverware in the other when something pings in his memory. “You two have _bets_ going about what the story is?” Joe can hear Jess laughing from the balcony.

Nicky and Joe talk at least once a day, with a few texts in between. So far, they’ve been the highlight of Nicky’s trip. 

Joe called on his way home from work the first night, and tonight Nicky is keeping him company while he does laundry. It’s pleasingly, if oddly, domestic for two people who aren’t even on the same continent. 

Tonight’s date is over FaceTime. Nicky is sprawled across the small couch in his hotel room, a beer in one hand, and a massive chunk of fried whitefish in the other. There is vinegar practically dripping off of it, and Joe would crawl through the phone to get the other piece still sitting in the box to Nicky’s left.

“Why are you just now eating? It’s nearly midnight.”

“We had a late meeting, so Andy had food brought in for dinner.”

“And you didn’t want it?” Joe's wadding up a pair of socks into a ball.

“She said it was Italian.” Nicky can see his face on the screen, and he hopes Joe can read the despair there.

“Oh, Nicky. What was it really?”

“Sadness.” 

Nicky fully expects the foil container of limp, overcooked penne in watery “tomato” sauce to feature in his nightmares for the next six months. He distracts himself with the sight of Joe’s wrists and forearms as Joe slips a shirt onto a hanger.

“There wasn’t anything you could eat?”

There hadn’t been. It had been a buffet of tragedies with an abomination that had the balls to be labeled “Caesar Salad” at one end. At the other end, a tray of tiny cannoli that managed to be gritty _and_ have pineapple in them.

What kind of godless heathen fuck puts pineapple in cannoli?

He’d fantasized, briefly, about setting it all on fire, but Nicky had been starving by then. After a silent apology to his Nonna, Nicky had tried to make do.

“I peeled the mozzarella off the top of the garlic bread and ate it like a cheese stick in a child’s lunchbox. And there were a few pieces of lettuce that didn’t have any dressing on them.”

“You earned that fish.”

Nicky grins around the frankly ill-advised amount he just shoved in his mouth.

At some point, the topic of past relationships comes up. Joe has nothing but nice things to say about his past partners. 

“It was circumstance every time, never anything with screaming.”

“Probably, I got all your screaming breakups and fights.” 

“Jess thinks it’s because I never felt strongly enough about them to be upset they were gone, as if I were saving my heart for some kind of ideal person.” He snorts, and an ocean away, Nicky quietly dreams of being that person. “Oh, the hummus came out of my white shirt.” Joe holds it up for the camera, and Nicky feels his mouth go dry around a mouthful of fish.

It’s like a sensory waterfall in his memories. The smell of that tiny bathroom and the feel of Joe’s waist under Nicky’s hand, cool from the soaking wet shirt. He can taste Joe’s mouth under his and hear the desperate moans from both their throats. If he closes his eyes, Nicky can perfectly picture the shadow of dark hair he could see through the fabric where it was especially wet. 

He also remembers the way Joe looked when he was giving Nicky a chance to back out and leave. Both images are so powerfully erotic in such different ways; Nicky's glad he’s sitting down.

“It took a couple of washes. I was afraid I was going to have to throw it out.”

Some primal, hidden caveman part of Nicky growls, “Don’t ever throw that shirt out.” 

Joe looks startled, and Nicky kicks himself. 

Fabulous, Nicky. Excellent restraint. Are you going to lick him, too? So that everyone knows he’s yours? Maybe put a post-it on him like he’s your lunch in the office fridge?

They’re growing closer, getting to know each other, but starting the relationship with intense, intimate contact has thrown off the rest of Nicky’s calibrations for how to behave at this stage.

“I just mean—“

“No. Don’t say anything. That was deeply hot.” He grins, and Nicky can see his eyes glitter.

He’d joked, if only to himself, about asking Joe to bring that shirt over when he came to visit. The idea of taking that shirt off of Joe, of unwrapping him, is too good to resist. “Someday, you should wear that when you come over.”

“I’m happy you want me to come over again.”

How would Joe not know how badly Nicky wants precisely that. Though he’s been so busy accidentally blurting out the wrong thing, he might have missed a step. “I—“ Nicky is flipping through his memories, trying to pinpoint times when he didn’t rely on subtext. “I felt. Like there was so much I didn’t have to say. I hoped you would know because you were also not saying it.”

“I probably was, but some things we probably _should_ say. I mean, this isn’t like any dating or—“ Joe waves his hand in a vague gesture “— whatever that I’ve ever done.”

“Joe?”

He looks up from where he’s stacking pajama pants on top of each other. “Mmm?”

“You’re right. It’s good, especially when things start unusually as ours did. It’s good to make things clear.” 

Nicky wonders if there’s a prize for emotional vulnerability because he’s about put himself his the running. 

If he’s lucky, the prize will be Joe.

“I’ll start,” Nicky says. "I like you.”

“That’s not what I—“

“I like you, very, very much. It would make me happy to date you, and only you, and spend as much time as you’d like together. It would be a tragedy if I didn’t get to see you asleep in my bed, so please, come over to my house again. Please look at home on my sofa again. Please touch my books again and eat at my table again. Please kiss me hello at my door again. I know there’s more, but it’s late, and this is my third beer.”

Joe is beaming at him. “Yeah, that would be good.”

“Which part?”

“All the parts.” Joe laughs. “As magnificent as your ass is, I want all the things you just said even more. And as glad as I will be to have you home, I’d take a hundred more nights like this if that’s what it took to spend time with you.”

“Oh. Good.” Nicky smiles and feels it spread across his whole face.

Grabbing a handful of hangers, Joe says, “I’ll be right back.” 

Nicky feels like he’s just been in a race, but it was worth it.

Joe picks up his laptop and shifts moves to the incredibly comfortable-looking overstuffed chair in his front room. He slumps down and drapes one forearm over his eyes. 

“Long day?”

Joe nods.

“You had dinner with your sister last night?”

Joe’s mouth is the only part of his face Nicky can see, but it’s smiling. “I did. She thinks you’re Scheherazade.” His chuckle is mostly a puff of air and a smile.

Nicky flicks through his mental file cabinet for what he might be using to — oh. 

“Because we keep not getting to that story?”

Joe nods again, then pulls his arm off his eyes, and sits up. “On the other hand, _I_ think it’s because you keep promising to debauch me, and then do everything else instead.”

Nicky raises an eyebrow. “I’m on the other side of the ocean, Joe.” 

“Yes,” one side of his mouth curls up in a smile. “You’re very clever with your distractions.”

Nicky laughs and tries not to get the last of his fish all over his keyboard. 

“Do you want me to tell you about eating sushi with a fork? If it’s tormenting you and your sister so much.”

Joe looks at him, something behind his eyes, pondering. “No.”

“No?”

“You save that one; I have no idea what it is, but I know I can wait until you’re home to find out.”

Nicky shrugs. He has no idea what Joe’s head is spinning up, but he’s enjoying watching Joe squirm, at least a little.

“If that’s what you want.” He thinks he keeps from smirking.

“You know what, you can tell me one thing.”

“Mmm?” Nicky raises questioning eyebrows.

“Is it one of the ways you’re going to get me to the point that I’m begging you?”

Nicky’s worked for Andy for more than eight years. In that time, he’s walked into more unknown, potentially volatile situations that he could have imagined. A person didn’t survive, let alone thrive, in an environment like that without developing a hell of a poker face when needed.

“The possibilities are infinite, Joe.”

Joe is sitting curled in his chair, elbow on the well-padded arm and his temple on his fist. “What about you giving me one of the infinite possibilities? Just as a bedtime story.”

Nicky sits forward, rests his elbows on his knees, and looks directly into the webcam on his laptop. “It’s a poor hunter who lets his prey know his scent before the chase has even begun.” He sits back. “Besides, this is my best material; it doesn’t come free, Joe.”

For a couple of seconds, Joe doesn’t say anything at all; he just stares at Nicky, something hot and huge behind his eyes. Eventually, he nods and sits back, reclining in the chair again. “Okay. We’ll wait until you’re home,” he says. Just as Nicky’s about to say that he’d expected more of a fight, Joe openly, blatantly palms his groin and lets his eyes flutter closed.

“Joe.” To his dying day, Nicky will deny that this was a growl.

“You’re right, Nicky. We should wait until we’re in the same room and can actually touch each other; anything else would just be torturing ourselves.” With what can only be described as malice aforethought, Joe slides his right hand under the waistband of the pajama pants he’s been wearing since he got home and bites his lip.

When Nicky finally gets enough moisture back in his mouth to speak, he narrows his eyes at Joe. “I feel like I ought to have known you had this vicious streak in you."

“You should go. It’s midnight, and you’ve got a meeting before nine," Joe says, stroking himself just once.

“You’re sure you want to start this?”

“Now, why would I want to start anything while you’re so far away?” Another stroke, and this time he hitches his hips a little as well.

“Such a little shit.”

“Sweet dreams, Nicky.”

“Good night, Joe," Nicky says, conceding defeat. For now.

  
It’s a strange courtship. These two men have tasted each other’s mouths but never hugged. They've spun fantasies and promised each other nights of passion, but never exchanged last names. Now, an ocean apart, they take the time to get to know each other.

Joe is glad, if he’s honest with himself, that they’ve been forced to take this step back. He’s enjoying learning about Nicky without the temptation of nearness. It’s not that they’re incapable of restraint, it’s just that when he’s in the same room with Nicky, it’s hard to see the point of it.

This way, they’ve had discussions about politics and debates about poetry. His fingers have itched to touch Nicky for every minute of those conversations. Still, it’s become a familiar tug by now, and he knows he’s not alone. 

One night, he’s explaining a tricky bit of translation that’s come across his desk. It’ll make more sense, he says, if Nicky’s heard the poem. “Go on then,” Nicky says, and Joe reads the handful of lines he’s completed so far. When he looks up, Nicky smiles. “Read it again?”

On the third day, Nicky wants to send him something and asks for an email address. When the message shows up in his inbox, Joe stares at it for a few seconds. It seems odd to think of Nicky having a last name. Of him having a first name that isn’t just Nicky. He replies so that they’re even.

It’s Nicky’s personal email address, but the picture he’s sharing includes his employee ID, piled on the desk in front of him, along with his breakfast and the actual purpose for the picture, Nicky’s cappuccino. Andy had dipped her mechanical pencil into her black coffee and used it to draw a dick in the foam of Nicky’s drink.

(There was no reason that picture had to come by email, but if this was the excuse Nicky needed to find out more about him, Joe’s happy to ignore the truth.)

Curious about Andy, Joe pulls up the company website. Two hours later, not only does Joe still have no idea what Andy looks like, he’s no closer to figure out what the company does. Once he gets the answer to the sushi question, this will be the thing that itches under Joe’s skin, begging for an answer.

  
The fourth night, Joe is lamenting the state of his cupboards and trying to decide what kind of food he wants to be delivered. “What do you have?” Nicky asks.

“Nothing.”

“I'm serious, Joe.” So he inventories his food supplies for Nicky. When he’s finished, Nicky walks him through cooking something truly magnificent with a few of the things Joe already had lying around.

At the end of that call, Nicky’s mood starts to dip. The trip is getting to him, the long hours, and the time away from home. “I have responsibilities, I know, but,” Nicky sighs. “I want to kiss you.”

It’s the simplest statement, but Joe feels it to his bones. “Good thing, bad thing. Go.”

“The good thing is that I get to see your face like this at the end of the day. The bad thing is that I only get to see your face like this at the end of the day.”

“Yeah.” They end the call not long after, both grumpy and maudlin, and unwilling to take it out on each other.

  
The first four days were novel, a new way to learn each other, and they’d tried to make the most of them. Even the end of the fourth day, when their moods and the distance meant they cut their call a little short.

But now it’s the fifth day, and they’ve both had enough.

Luckily, so has Andy.

“When is your flight?” 

“Just before noon, I think. Andy has the details. I wouldn’t care if the plane took off at three in the morning, just so long as it was heading in that direction.”  
  
“You’ll be happy to see your own bed,” Joe says.

There’s a beat before Nicky says, “That depends, I suppose. Will you be in it?”

Joe’s belly goes tight, and his heart thumps louder. It’s not a surprise at this point that Nicky wants him, misses him, but Joe’s not sure he’ll ever get used to hearing that kind of honest desire.

“No place else I’d rather be.”

“Good. I hope I won’t be ruining any of your weekend plans by keeping you there.”

“For how long?”

“Days. At least.”

“Letting me see your best material?” Joe winks at him.

“Of course. As I said, infinite possibilities, Joe.”

Fuck. Now Joe is thinking about the sushi again. He hadn’t lied to Nicky; he really is happy to wait and satisfy his curiosity when Nicky is home. It’s just that every hour before then, Joe imagines some new answer, and they’re getting increasingly kinky.

At this point, if ‘eating sushi with a fork’ turns out to be something he needs a safeword for, Joe won’t even be surprised.

He’ll have to make up something to tell Jess, though, because there are some moments where, as much as she’s his best friend, she’s his baby sister just a little more. 

“You know, Nicky, there are people who would say holding a man captive in your bed before you’ve even had a third date is moving a little fast.”

“Tell them that _is_ our third date.” 

They both laugh, but something flits across Nicky’s face. “Joe. These theoretical people? Do you want to have their relationships? Or do you want to have ours?'"

It’s the first time either of them has called it a relationship out loud. As much as Joe wants to be above those arbitrary milestones, it does make something in his chest go tight, just for a second.

“That’s not even a question.”

“The nice thing about it being our relationship. It goes at exactly the perfect speed for us.”

Joe wants to kiss Nicky like he wants his next breath.

“Yeah. It does.” Soon, so soon, Joe’s going to kiss Nicky until they’re both weak from it. “Do you need a ride from the airport?”

“No, Andy’s wife will meet us and drop me at home.” 

Nicky looks so tired, and it’s everything Joe can do not to reach out for the screen and try to push his hair off his face. “Will they feed you on the plane?”

“They’ll try. I think I might sleep through it and pick up something in the airport instead. Or drive through somewhere on the way home, if I can convince Andy."

“Or…” he draws out the ‘r’ for at least two seconds. “Or I could meet you at your house with food no one handed me from across a counter or through a window of any kind.”

Nicky opens his mouth, and Joe is waiting for him to say Joe shouldn’t bother, that it’s too much, that he couldn’t possibly. Except that at some point during the discussion about their ex’s, Joe had talked about feeling useless when someone he cared about needed help. Right now, Joe can see that flicker across Nicky’s face. 

“I would like that very much, thank you.”

“You’re getting whatever I make.”

Nicky’s smile is so soft, and Joe wants nothing more than to kiss it right off his face. "As long as it will be you who delivers it, I could ask for nothing more.”

“Text me when you land?”

“I can do that.” Nicky nods. “And this way, I can rest on the plane and be ready to show you every terrible thing I’ve dreamed of doing to you all week.”

“I just want a real, live kiss from you. Everything else is a bonus.”

There’s that soft smile again. “I’m going to bed. Otherwise, I will pass out on this keyboard any minute. Good night.”

“Good night, Nicky,” Joe says. And by some miracle, that’s all he says; any other words stay trapped behind his teeth. 

  
He calls Jess right after they hang up; she’s the family expert in the recipe he wants to make. Most of the things on the ingredient list Joe already has, but he’ll need to grab a few more things at lunch tomorrow.

“Is this for him? I thought he was still on his business trip.”

“He is, but he’ll be home tomorrow in time for dinner, so I’m taking this over to him.”

“I hope your boyfriend knows how lucky he is.”

Joe rubs his forehead; he knows what she sounds like when she’s fishing for information. In this instance, she’s lucky he can also tell what she sounds like when she feels protective. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“You’re making him this recipe, and you’re taking it over to his house, all so he doesn’t have to eat airplane food. _Business Class_ airplane food. That’s a boyfriend thing, Yusuf. If he’s not your boyfriend, what is he?”

“He’s.” Hunting for a word that’s a better fit, Joe’s coming up empty-handed. “He’s more.”

“More what?”

“Just more. Thanks for the recipe. I’ll call you tomorrow at some point, and you can lecture me about how I’m making it wrong.”

“Whatever you need,” she says, and he loves her fiercely. 


	6. and this is what it is like or what it is like in words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It keeps poking at Joe, plucking strings in his brain. He’s cooking the next afternoon, his senses full of the smell of lemons and cinnamon and the sound of music from his phone, but none of it is louder than the words he said to Jess.  
>    
>  _More what?_
> 
> _Just more_
> 
> How the hell did this happen?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A half-remembered conversation:
> 
> Me: This chapter is going to be so long! 
> 
> BFF: It'll be as long as it needs to be.
> 
> Me: And it's mostly smut.
> 
> BFF: I cannot begin to tell you how little people will give a shit. Give the people their filth.
> 
> (Have at it, kids. Though, if you're not a smut fan? Maybe stop reading after the bit on the couch at the beginning.)

It keeps poking at Joe, plucking strings in his brain. He’s cooking the next afternoon, his senses full of the smell of lemons and cinnamon and the sound of music from his phone, but none of it is louder than the words he said to Jess.

_More what?_

_Just more_

How the hell did this happen?

Two weeks ago, he was walking down the street, with a funny story about a contact in his phone, and nothing particularly extraordinary happening in his life.

A week and a half ago, he made a mistake that countless people make every day, but somehow his accidental call managed to reach someone with wit and charm and personality. Someone he was willing to take a shot at meeting. They somehow bypassed everything between ‘awkward first date’ and ‘intense makeout’ on that first night, and everything between ‘how about a second date?’ and ’how many ways can we find to be domestic together?’ on the next night.

It doesn’t feel forced, though? It feels right. It feels like they’re having _their_ relationship. When they talk to each other? It’s like they're playing. Nicky gives as good as he gets, and just when Joe is ready with a witty comeback, Nicky surprises him with a heartfelt declaration.

If kissing and talking are this good with Nicky? Joe’s not sure any sex could live up to those expectations, which doesn’t stop him from imagining all the possibilities. He’s spent too much of the last five days picturing Nicky’s skin under his hands, hearing Nicky’s voice in his ear, seeing those eyes the color of sea glass, wide and staring right at him. In the moments he’d never admit to, Joe’s thought about how it will feel to have Nicky, hot and hard, in his mouth.

Joe wouldn’t say he’s spent an awe-inspiring amount of time over the last five days dreaming about what it will be like to feel Nicky’s skin next to his at last. He would say he’s been cultivating a rich inner life. If most of that cultivation happens while he's in the shower, it’s really just efficient use of his time, isn’t it?

His phone buzzes, interrupting the music, and when Joe looks over, he sees Nicky’s name.

_‘On the ground. Home in an hour, I think.’_

‘perfect timing, dinner’s almost done. let me know when you’re leaving the airport.’

The food goes into a few separate containers. Joe tucks some more of the mint tea into the bag as well. He’s ticking things off on his mental list, zipping right through until he hits the part where he can almost see, written out on a page, ‘change of clothes?’ and his brain shudders to a halt.

This is the plan. It’s been the plan all along. It was the plan last time; they’d just been torpedoed by circumstances beyond their control. So why would this be something even to question? It’s not presumptuous. That’s what he’s telling himself. 

He knows it's ridiculous. When they’d been joking about how long they’d stay in bed, it had been Nicky who said ‘Days. At least.’ Still, even the incredibly slim chance of Nicky looking at his toothbrush sticking out of the side pocket of his backpack and saying, “Oh. Were you planning on staying?” puts a sliver of doubt in Joe's head.

Closing his eyes, Joe takes a deep breath and remembers Nicky’s voice saying, ‘Do you want to have their relationships? Or do you want to have ours?’ All at once, his chest loosens like Nicky's given him permission to breathe. 

A change of clothes goes into the backpack, also a toothbrush, his ludicrously indulgent beard oil, and a book. Always a book. 

Does he go digging through his drawer for the pajama pants he knows hang right on his hips and the t-shirt so old and loved it’s almost see-through? What a ridiculous question. Why? Did someone say something? 

He’s most of the way out of the door when he stops and, in a fit of confidence, grabs a second pair of underwear and stuffs it down alongside the first. It’s been colder the last couple of nights, so at the last second, Joe pulls his leather jacket from the coat rack by the door.

  
Nicky loves her, he does, but by the time they turn down his street, he's well and truly sick of Andy. It’s mutual, and neither of them is taking offense. It's how they both get at the end of a trip like this. Right now, he’s that horrible cocktail of absolutely wired and completely exhausted, and he just wants to get into his house.

“Well, now, that’s impressive,” Andy says. “Company, Nicky?”

“What?”

She nods her head in the direction of his house, and Nicky sees what she's looking at. He also understands her reaction.

Standing at the top of his front steps, leaning back against the iron railing, with his nose in a book, wearing jeans and boots and a black leather jacket, is Joe. It’s like Nicky ordered his fantasy man and had him delivered. 

Nicky would never admit it, but he’s wondered, the tiniest bit if his memory was exaggerating how his body reacts to just seeing Joe?

The sudden twinge of pain where his zipper is digging into his rapidly-thickening cock tells Nicky that he hasn’t misremembered anything. Nicky wants to bury his fingers in Joe’s hair, kiss him for hours, and then drag him to bed for a week. 

“Is this the date?”

“Andy. No.” 

“What? So I don’t get to meet him? I can be nice!”

Quite probably, Andy _doesn’t_ realize that her ‘innocent’ voice is somehow even more terrifying than her ‘just being friendly’ voice, and that together they sound like she’s trying to lure unsuspecting victims into a windowless van. Probably. 

He looks at her, raising one eyebrow. 

“Someday, perhaps. After I’ve had a chance to warn him and barricade the doors so he can’t escape.”

He grabs his bag from the seat next to him and reaches forward to squeeze Andy’s shoulder.

“So, is this just dinner? Or is this a sleepover?” she asks.

Nicky is unwilling and unable to stop the smile that spreads across his face.

Andy nods. “Don’t come in tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Boss.”

“Or the day after.”

At the sound of Nicky getting out of the car, Joe turns, and his face breaks out into a grin.

Nicky can hear Andy through her open window, whisper, “Holy shit.” He couldn't agree more.

He’s been on one too many planes today actually to jog up the steps, but Nicky gets to Joe as fast as he can. He’s been thinking about this moment for days, and for a second, he doesn’t know what comes next.

From the street, Nicky can hear Andy yell, “Hi Joe!” and from somewhere next to her in the car comes a deep wolf whistle.

Nicky doesn’t even turn from looking at Joe to yell, “Fuck off, Andy."

She’s still laughing as she rolls up the window, and the car pulls away.

“Hello,” Nicky says.

“Hello.”

“Have you been waiting lo—“

“Nicky,” Joe cuts him off. “I have been waiting for a week. Kiss me.” 

Nicky does.

At first, because he simply leans in to start the kiss, only their mouths are touching. It’s perfect already, but then Nicky can feel Joe’s arms around him, can feel strong fingers digging into his back, pulling him closer. Nicky slides his hands beneath Joe’s jacket and clutches his waist. Gone from his mind are the frustrations of travel, the difficulty of the day, now there’s only the warm weight of Joe's jacket on his arms, and the even warmer body under his hands.

The extra benefit to Joe’s request is that it stops Nicky from making small talk. Small talk gets Nicky into trouble. The specter of ‘That would make me Nicky’ still haunts him. This, though, is something they’ve never gotten wrong. This relationship—relationship!— is between the two of them, not whoever the two of them think they should pretend to be on a first date.

All Nicky can smell is Joe. His skin, hair, the soap he uses on his shirt, and the heady, rich smell of his jacket. It’s making his head fuzzy, and he doesn’t want it ever to stop. It’s only been a week, but this kiss feels like it was years in the making.

It’s a kiss that says ‘hello’ and ‘how are you so much sexier than I remember?’ but also ‘there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now’ and ‘we’re going to ruin each other in the best ways.’ Mostly though, it’s a kiss that says, ‘I missed you. I missed you so much. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed you until I had you in my arms again.’

When it ends, Nicky keeps his forehead resting against Joe’s, both of them breathing into the space between them. 

“Fuck,” Joe whispers. Nicky’s not even sure Joe’s talking to him; he seems just to be expressing disbelief that the moment is finally here. 

“Food first,” Nicky says and watches a smile light up Joe’s eyes. Nicky must remember to thank him later for suggesting they skip the small talk. Going straight to kissing seems to have bypassed his verbal disaster switch.

  
“Eat at the table or eat on the sofa?” Joe calls as he unloads the containers holding their dinner.

“Sofa,” Nicky yells from the bathroom. “I’ve been in too many chairs and seats today. I’ll be right there, give me five minutes.” 

It’s not a long shower, but it’s enough to wash away the smell of airplanes and sweat and travel. Dressed in his NYU t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, Nicky drops onto the sofa next to Joe. “Thank you again for cooking. For coming over. For being here, really.”

“It’s my very great pleasure,” Joe says, leaning close for a kiss.

“Don’t start. Food first.”

“I’m not starting anything.” Joe is the picture of innocence. 

“Do you even hear these lies you’re saying?” 

“No,” Joe says, laughing like the rotten liar he is. Nicky shakes his head and wonders at how much he adores this man.

“This smells amazing,” Nicky says. "I would recommend you eat well; you’ll need your energy.”

“I like the sound of that.”

Nicky stretches his legs out, putting his feet in Joe’s lap. “When we’re finished with dinner, I’m taking you into my bed, and I’m going to show you exactly how much I missed you, and your kisses, and the way you feel under my hands.”

“Good, as long as I get a turn. There’s a spot on your neck that I haven’t kissed for too many days.” 

Having finished his food first, Nicky puts his plate on the coffee table and rests his head against the back of the sofa. All week long, he’s been dreaming of having Joe this near, being able to touch him and kiss him, and now that the day is here, Nicky wants to soak up every bit of it. Even here on the couch, fully clothed, because being able to reach down and put his hand on Joe’s foot, to see their legs draped over each other, even these parts are perfect.

If Nicky had seen this moment in a movie, he’d have turned to the person in the next seat and rolled his eyes. 'Such rank sentimentality,' he’d say with all the authority of someone who doesn’t know what he’s missing. It’s rare, but sometimes, Nicky’s the dumbest smart person he knows.

Reaching down, Nicky slides his hand up the leg of Joe’s jeans. Partly he’s reveling in the contrast of Joe’s warm skin under crisp hairs. Mostly, though, he’s just enjoying that Joe is here, really here, in his house again, that they’re here together. Joe’s been keeping up most of the conversation for the last few minutes, so he’s not quite finished eating. ‘I’ll just close my eyes and enjoy the sound of his voice,’ is the last conscious thought Nicky has.

  
As much as Joe has been craving Nicky’s touch, as much as he’s been anointing his shower wall while fantasizing about what their first night together will be like, one thing has been evident since they sat down on the couch. Whether Joe—or his cock— liked it or not, this particular night won’t end with them in a naked, sweaty, satisfied heap. Not with Nicky this tired. There are deep purple circles under his eyes, and Joe wonders when the last time was that Nicky got a good night’s sleep. 

Is it at least a little motivated by the selfish desire to have the full force of Nicky’s attention on him when the time comes? Of course. But Joe figures that doing something altruistic while also looking out for your own interests is what gets us art museums, so he’s not beating himself up about it too much.

Joe sits and watches Nicky sleep for a few minutes. He's just taking in the flop of hair over his forehead, the lines of his nose, and every other little thing Joe’s been trying to remember for the last week. Nicky needs to be moved from the couch to his bed before his sleep gets any deeper. Joe clears the dishes, leaving them in the sink until morning, and puts the leftovers away before coming back into the living room and putting one hand on Nicky’s shoulder. 

Nicky doesn’t move. He’s very softly snoring, and Joe finds it adorable.

This is what his life has come to, finding someone’s snoring adorable. He’s so fucked.

Joe thinks about the name he’s only ever seen in Nicky’s work emails and decides now is as good a time as any to try it out. He squeezes Nicky’s shoulder again and bends to whisper in his ear. “Nicolò. We need to move to the bed.”

Nicky shifts, rolls, and mumbles something that Joe decides to take as an agreement on their course of action. He shakes Nicky’s shoulder a little.

“I’d love just to sweep you up and carry you there, but I’d rather not start this weekend with one of us getting hurt in a really boring way. Also, I have no idea where your bedroom is.”

Nicky grins a slow, sleepy smile and reaches out both hands. “Taking me to bed?”

“That’s right.” Taking Nicky’s hands, Joe hauls him up off the couch.

“Mm, good. I’ve been waiting for this all week. I’ll make it good, Joe.” 

“I know you will, it’ll be the best, but first, you gotta get us into the bedroom.” He gently pushes Nicky in the direction of the stairs.

Nicky’s not moving fast, so Joe has time to make sure doors are locks and turn most of the lights. He catches up with Nicky at the top of the stairs. 

“Hey. There you are,” Nicky says. “I’m happy you’re here.”

Tomorrow, he will let Nicky do things to him that will make his pulse race even weeks later, just by remembering them. Tonight, his heart is already screwed.

“I’m happy I’m here, too. Which door?”

Nicky’s bedroom is exactly what would have come to mind if you’d asked Joe to describe it sight-unseen. Nothing matches, but everything works. One wall is nothing but floor-to-ceiling bookshelves; another is covered in pictures. Joe recognizes a few as the work of Nicky’s sister. The wall behind the bed is a warm, dark blue; it’s the same blue as the big chair by the window. Judging by the haphazard pile of books next to it, Joe is willing to bet that chair is the most comfortable piece of furniture in the house.

Off to one side is the door into a bathroom. Joe stops in his tracks.

“Hey, Nicky?”

Sitting on his bed, tugging off his socks, Nicky looks up at him, questioning.

“When I get bored with you, I’m leaving you for your bathtub. We’re going to run away together.”

“Be my guest. Remind me to show you how to work the jets first.”

“It has jets?” Nicky nods. “Oh, Nicky, you sweet-talker.”

Nicky smirks at him. He’s barefoot, but with his hand on the waist of his sweatpants, he’s got the look of a man who isn’t sure how much he should take off, or how fast. It's a problem Joe is uniquely qualified to help solve. 

“I’ll get that.” Joe knows that Nickys’ going to be asleep three seconds after his head hits the pillow, but right now he’s awake, and it’s hitting both of them that this, this exact moment, is where they’ve been trying to get to for weeks. Joe slips his hands under Nicky’s shirt, fingers sweeping along his waist. 

Nicky sucks in a breath but otherwise doesn’t move a muscle. As Nicky leans in, their mouths are a hair’s breadth apart. Joe slips just the tips of his fingers under the waistband of Nicky’s pants, just at the small of his back. Nicky’s hand is in his hair faster than Joe can blink, and this kiss is even better than the one on the front steps. They finally break the kiss so Joe can finish pushing Nicky’s shirt up and off his arms.

Joe can’t stop touching him. Granted, he’s not trying very hard to stop. There’s just so much skin, and all of it is warm, and all of it smells like Nicky. He wants to drop to his knees, wants to suck bruises into Nicky’s neck, wants to strip down, and put himself at Nicky’s mercy for hours. He wants it so bad he’s aching with it. 

With his dick doing most of his thinking right now, it's hard to remember that he wants Nicky in fighting form when their time comes. Altruism, he thinks to himself. Fucking art museums. 

Joe pulls the covers back. “I need to do something. You going to be waiting for me in the bed when I get back?” Nicky nods. Joe kisses him once more and steps into the bathroom.

He doesn’t actually do anything while he’s in there, other than some light snooping. He’s just doing what any good player does when the end of the game is already won or lost—he’s running out the clock.   
  
Pulling his phone from his pocket, Joe sends Jess a quick note. 

’dinner was a success, thank you for your help.’

‘ _ur welcome enjoy the wknd stay hydrated’_

When his phone says three minutes have passed, Joe looks out and sees Nicky, sprawled on his back, snoring once more. 

Shit. How is that still so adorable?

Joe changes into his pajamas, cuts off the lights, and crawls into bed on the side Nicky isn’t currently spread across like he’s trying to save seats for friends who are running late. 

He has no idea what position Nicky usually sleeps in, doesn’t even know if Nicky likes to—snuggle? Cuddle?

Again, how has his life come to this? Trying to decide whether ‘cuddle’ or ’snuggle’ best fits how he wants to hold this incredible man while they sleep.

Joe decides that if Nicky wanted a vote in what position they slept in, he should have stayed awake. What Joe wants is to curl himself around Nicky and get his nose somewhere that he’ll be able to smell Nicky all night. He’s a simple man with simple needs. Hooking an arm around Nicky’s middle, Joe pulls him closer. There’s a spot just at the base of Nicky’s neck, where Joe can smell both his skin and his hair.

If you asked him directly, Joe would deny it, at least this early on, but this is the kind of perfect he didn’t even think to wish for. He has one arm under his head and the other across Nicky’s chest as he falls asleep.

  
What wakes Nicky in the morning is the motion of Joe getting back into the bed and sliding close again, but he’s not aware enough to know that. He just knows that when his eyes open, he’s in his own bed, in his own house, and that finally, fucking finally, Joe is here with him. He’s tucked into the curves of Nicky’s body, behind his knees, over his back, one arm slung around Nicky, unabashedly snuggling him close. Feeling Joe’s warm breaths against the back of his neck, Nicky just stays still, drowning in all of this for as long as possible. Soon he’ll have to get up and—wait.

“Did you bring me coffee?”

Joe hums a ‘yes’ into Nicky’s neck.

“You used my coffee machine?”

He can feel the stroke of Joe’s nose as he nods.

“I just—Forgive me; I need a moment.” Nicky’s brow furrows. "You got up early, figured out how to use my horrible temperamental coffee machine, and brought me coffee in bed?”

Joe’s voice is so sleep-soft, Nicky almost feels terrible for grilling him like this, but it’s important.

“Breakfast, too. Kinda.”

Right. Okay. That’s as much as Nicky can take lying down. He rolls until he can prop himself up on both elbows and look down at Joe, tucked up behind him. 

Behind Joe, Nicky can see the nightstand on the other side of the bed. On it are two mugs, both steaming, and a plate stacked with two sliced and toasted bagels. They must have been in the freezer; Nicky doesn’t want to think about how old they are. There’s a handful of fruit as well; Nicky recognizes it as leftover from dessert the night before. 

While Nicky was drooling into his pillow, Joe was thinking about him and how to make his morning better, his life better. Nicky thinks about how Joe brought dinner last night, got him into bed, cared for him. Simple, gestures, all of them, but to Nicky, they’re immeasurable. His eyes shift from the plate back to Joe’s face, and he just stares, waiting for words, any words at all, to come. 

A line appears between Joe’s eyebrows. “Nicky?” 

“Thank you,” Nicky says but feels. Inadequate, somehow. It feels small. “Just—I’ll be right back.”

When Nicky finishes brushing his teeth and comes back to bed, Joe’s dozed off again. He blinks back awake when Nicky settles over him and starts kissing his neck. “Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for coffee and breakfast and putting me to bed last night. Thank you for being next to me when I woke up. I’ve been waiting for weeks to wake up next to you. It was worth every second.” Joe’s mouth opens under Nicky’s kiss, and he moans, arching up into Nicky’s chest. 

Nicky stretches across Joe, very deliberately grinding parts of their bodies against each other, and picks up his mug. It’s not perfect coffee. For one thing, his machine is a something of a bitch, and needs to be sweet-talked a bit. For another, they haven’t really talked about how Nicky likes his coffee doctored. Joe’s only heard him talk about the coffee he gets if he’s stopping somewhere to have someone else make it. Still, it’s here, it’s hot, and Joe made it for him and brought it to him in bed, so it’s the best coffee Nicky’s ever had.

“Just for the record, we are getting back to that kissing bit soon, aren’t we?”

Nicky laughs. “I’m keeping you here for days.”

Joe pushes himself up until he’s sitting with his back against the headboard. The other mug is full of that mint tea Joe loves, and Nicky can see the steam rising to wrap around Joe’s head as he drinks. 

“What time is it?” Nicky doesn’t have a clock in here, and his phone is face-down on his dresser, clear across the room.

Joe grabs Nicky’s phone and hands it to him. “Almost ten,” he says around a mouthful of bagel.

Nicky flicks his phone to silent mode and very deliberately drops it on the rug where he can’t reach it.

When they’ve both eaten a little, and Nicky can feel the caffeine start pinging around in his brain, Joe says, “So.” There’s a glint of something in his eyes, and Nicky can’t wait to see where this is heading.

“We’ve slept in,” Joe says. “I brought you coffee, and we had brunch in bed. I think if we want the full domestic bingo card, all we’re missing is doing the crossword, and having boring missionary sex.”

Nicky’s taking a drink as Joe says that, but somehow manages to swallow without choking. “Boring missionary sex?”

Taking Joe’s mug, Nicky puts the drinks on the steamer trunk he uses as his bedside table. “I’ll be honest with you, Joe. I’m troubled, and a little offended, that you think any sex had in my bed might be ‘boring,’ regardless of position.”

Thankfully, Joe seems to realize Nicky’s teasing him. “I don’t have enough data to form a conclusion,” Joe says, and Nicky wants to kiss him until they’re eighty.

Nicky wants to make a snappy comeback, he does. He hunts around in his brain for one and finds nothing except a screaming, fevered need to be touching this man right fucking now.

Joe is still sitting with his back against the headboard, a little smirk on his face, and Nicky hears something in his brain, some hint of restraint, go _tink_ as it snaps. He takes one of Joe’s ankles in each hand and pulls until Joe is flat on his back, laughing. The movement has exposed a strip of skin between the bottom of Joe’s shirt and the top of his pants, and Nicky knows it’s that same bit of skin that tormented him the last time Joe was in his house. Nicky holds down Joe’s pajama pants just over his hips, effectively pinning him to the bed. Joe’s body twists under his even as Nicky bends and presses his mouth to that strip of skin, sucking it. With a gasp, Joe bucks under him, and Nicky grins. He drags his head up Joe’s chest, pushing the shirt up with his forehead, and baring even more of that perfect skin. 

Nicky can’t resist rubbing his face against Joe’s chest hair, feeling how soft it is. Someday, he's going to beg for Joe to pin him like he's pinning Joe right now. He'll rut his cock against Joe’s chest until it's so sensitive he comes just from Joe breathing on him. Not today, though; today, he has other plans. 

Replacing his hands with his knees, Nicky straddles Joe’s hips. Not high enough to put any pressure on the thickening bulge he can see under Joe’s pants, a fact which is clearly frustrating Joe. He’s writhing under Nicky, trying to rub himself against the fabric enough to get some decent friction. Nicky presses his knees tighter, stilling the movement of Joe’s hips, and Joe whimpers. 

Nicky pushes Joe’s shirt up under his arms and grabs it in both fists. “Your lower lip—” Joe’s tongue darts out to lick the specific spot Nicky’s been staring at, and he forgets what he was going to say. Bending, Nicky hauls Joe up by his shirt, meeting him a few inches off the bed so he can take that spot between his teeth and bite just hard enough for Joe to hiss. 

If he plays his cards right, later this weekend, Nicky might get to see Joe’s lower lip when it’s slick and a little swollen from dragging against Nicky’s cock while Nicky fucks that perfect mouth.

He goes perfectly still for a second while his brain reboots.

Between the two of them, they get Joe’s shirt up and off, tossing it across the room. Suddenly, Nicky wants nothing more than to have as much of his skin touching as much of Joe’s skin as possible. When Nicky is stretched out over Joe, feeling every place their chests are touching, the only way to express how good it feels is to kiss Joe breathless. Every time Joe moves and arches under him, Nicky groans into his mouth.

Joe’s “Nicky,” is a sigh right into Nicky’s mouth, and his hands are big and warm on Nicky’s back. He’s trying to pull Nicky somehow closer, and Nicky wants nothing more than to give him that. When Joe’s hands slide down the back of Nicky’s sweatpants, he can’t stop himself from grinding himself into the hollow of Joe’s hip.

“Fuck. Joe, why are we still wearing pants?”

“Don’t look at me,” Joe says, biting at the side of Nicky’s neck. “I’m trapped in mine right now.” 

For just a second, it’s all a little too real. He’s wanted this for what feels like years, wanted to feel Joe under him like this, to taste his skin, and kiss him whenever the mood strikes. What if they just don’t mesh like this? It happens, and it can happen to people who are otherwise incredibly perfectly matched. Worse, what if Nicky’s written checks his ass can’t cash. He’s talked a good game, and he does want to take his time and give Joe the attention he deserves, but what if Joe doesn’t enjoy it once Nicky gets started.

“Hey,” Joe says, and his voice is so soft and gentle. “Talk to me.”

Talking. That’s it. That’s what Nicky needed to hear. He and Joe are _good_ at talking. Even when Nicky was opening his mouth and saying any stupid thing his brain put together, Joe still seemed to like talking to him. The last week, they’ve had a chance to settle into it more and learn how the other communicates. The very fact that Joe is checking in with him now is proof that Nicky’s fears are entirely unfounded. Joe had a question, and he asked it.

If Nicky is worried he’s doing something Joe doesn’t want, he can ask. If he wants something specific, he can ask. All he needs to do is make sure that Joe knows the road goes both ways. Though, from the way he’s looking at Nicky now, it seems he already knows that.

“I’m good,” Nicky says. “Look at you,” and Nicky can hear the awe in his own voice. His thumb brushes Joe’s cheekbone. Nicky kisses him again, will likely never get tired of kissing him. Joe moans, and his hands tighten, squeezing Nicky’s ass and driving Nicky’s hips into Joe’s.

Nicky’s cock throbs and, yes, now he remembers where they were. With a profoundly graceless wriggle, Nicky manages to finish undressing himself. He doesn’t realize how much he’s wriggling _against_ Joe until he kicks his sweatpants free of his ankles. Joe's pants are dark and damp, where he's been fucking himself against Nicky’s thigh. 

“Your turn,” Nicky says. Joe reaches down to push his pajama pants off, and Nicky swats his hand away. “I didn’t wait a week just to watch someone else unwrap my present.”

“Please, Nicky. I need to feel your skin against me. All your skin, Nicky.”

Fuck, he knew Joe would be pretty like this, strung out and needy. Still, knowing it and seeing it are two very different things, and the reality in front of him is making Nicky’s cock drip.

He pulls the waistband of Joe’s pants out and far enough down that it won’t catch on Joe’s cock. The peek he gets of it, flushed and weeping, is enough to make Nicky’s mouth water. Nicky pushes the waistband down while Joe pulls his legs up and out, and soon Joe’s pants are on top of Nicky’s in a heap beside the bed. 

On his knees between Joe’s legs, Nicky stares. Two weeks of fantasies, countless dreams, nothing even came close to reality. “You are so fucking beautiful.” Remembering his earlier plea, Nicky drapes himself over Joe, making sure their skin touches in as many places as possible.

“Oh, fuck! Nicky!” Joe buries his face against Nicky’s neck and moans. As a shiver starts at Joe’s shoulders and works its way down his body, he makes a high, keening sound. When his hips jerk against Nicky’s, it seems as much a surprise to Joe as it does to Nicky, and the contact punches a startled “Fuck!” out of him.

Nicky kisses his neck, the hollow of Joe’s shoulder, where he’s thought about resting his head. He kisses over Joe’s heart and down the center of his chest until he’s on his belly in the vee of Joe’s thighs. “Beautiful,” he whispers as he looks up the length of Joe’s body to see those dark eyes staring back at him.

Sliding one of Joe’s legs up onto his shoulder, Nicky grins up at him as he licks a long stripe up the length of Joe’s cock. Joe’s “Fuuuuuck,” is a wail, and Nicky drinks it in like wine. Nicky continues kissing and licking, but not sucking, anything that he can get his mouth on, as he reaches one hand under Joe to grab as much of that perfect ass as he can. 

He wants to be touching Joe everywhere. His fingers have been stroking and gripping at Joe’s back, his chest, but Nicky’s not stopping until he’s touched every bit of this man that he can. Kneeling up, Nicky lets Joe’s leg slip until his elbow is cradling Joe's knee. This way, he can bend to kiss Joe, lick into his mouth, and moan shamelessly at how good everything feels. 

When he kisses his way back down Joe’s chest, Nicky slides Joe’s knee back onto his shoulder. He’s spread beneath Nicky like a feast, and Nicky wants every bit of it. He’s looking into Joe’s eyes as he sweeps his hand down to press one finger against Joe’s hole. They’ll need time and lube for this to go anywhere else, but he wants to see Joe’s face as he falls apart under Nicky’s hands for the first time.

He's not expecting to feel Joe's hole slick and relaxed against his finger.

“Did you—“

“Don’t worry, I washed my hands between that and making coffee.”

Now it’s Nicky’s turn to laugh. This isn’t how he thought this part would go, but for them, it’s perfect. “You’ve been busy.”

Joe smirks. 

“Were you thinking that if you spent time hiding in my bathroom, robbing me of part of my fun, you’d be able to get me inside you faster?” Nicky has no idea where this monologue is coming from, but he wisely decides to step back and let it happen.

“I missed you,” Joe says, as though that explains everything.

“I missed you, too.” Nicky kisses a spot of bare, warm skin at the base of Joe’s cock. “Even after our calls, I’d still miss you.” Joe nods. “Tell the truth,” Nicky says, two callused fingers rubbing across where the lube is leaking from Joe’s ass. His voice drops to a whisper. “Did you do this to yourself, sometimes, after we talked?”

“Of course.” Joe is starting to squirm, to try and work his hole down onto Nicky’s fingers.

“Usually, I would go to sleep right after we talked, but in the afternoons, when you were still working, I’d stroke myself and think of you. I’d dream of touching you, playing with you, just being able to take all the time I needed to make you ache as I ached.” Still rubbing with his fingers, Nicky licks a stripe up the crease at the top of Joe’s thigh. “I love watching you lose yourself, even if it’s just to our kisses, and I couldn’t wait to see how beautiful you’d be riding my fingers while I opened you. I still want to see that.”

It feels like part of Nicky is sitting back, watching this on a screen, marveling at the kind of filth they’ll put on TV these days. He’s not sure what’s happened to him. Sure, he’s always been prone to being a talker. It isn’t always the cleanest talk, especially in the heat of the moment, but this is something altogether different. For one thing, it’s so much more specific and lewd. Watching from three feet away, mentally speaking, Nicky sees himself giving Joe explicit plans, details of his preparations, and a description of what will happen to him next. 

He’s wondering why those elements sound familiar to him, and then it clicks. It’s the dirtiest Bond-villain speech ever given.

Miraculously, Nicky doesn’t laugh right out loud.

The problem is that, just like a Bond villain, Nicky has a specific message he wants to get across, so he decides to just cut to the point.

“I very much appreciate you being so”—he kisses that spot at the base of Joe’s cock again—“proactive this morning. I just hope you don’t think that’s going make me accelerate my plans at all.”

Joe groans, frustrated, maybe even a little whiny.

“Poor Joe. I can just picture you, in my bathroom, slicking yourself up, stretching yourself. Knowing you wanted me inside you as soon as possible after I woke up is very, very compelling, I’ll admit. Not compelling enough, though, to have me breaking the first promise I ever made you.” Nicky turns his head and sucks a kiss right below the head of Joe’s cock, grinning as Joe curses and grabs at the sheets. It pulses, thumping against Nicky’s mouth, and he can’t help but grin.

Still, Joe had worked so hard, and that coffee maker really is a bitch, so perhaps Nicky should give him a little reward. He takes the two fingers rubbing back and forth over that soft, slick spot and pushes them in. The push is barely enough to be considered ‘in,’ but Joe still shouts, and his hips arch up off the bed. 

“See, Joe? You wanted me to skip this? You wanted to go right to some kind of main course like this isn’t a meal in itself?” Another push in, another cry from Joe. “I love feeling you like this; I just wish I’d been the one to do it.”

“Lucky for you,” Joe is panting and twisting against the bedding, and they’ve barely begun. He’s going to be the most beautiful wreck when Nicky finally takes him. “Lucky for you, there’s always next time, right?”

“I like the idea of a next time.” Nicky tries to come up with a scenario in which he wouldn’t want to have Joe next to him, under him, curled up behind him. Significant head trauma resulting in memory loss, maybe? Even then, he’d probably just learn to be a sucker for Joe all over again. 

Joe goes completely still, then sits bolt upright. The slide of his leg off Nicky’s shoulder pins Nicky’s wrist to the bed well away from Joe’s ass. “Nicky? I know you told me that you want me in your house and your bed again—look, we said it’s good to make things clear, and I want to be absolutely sure this is one of the things I make clear. I’m not just trying to finish what we started in the bathroom at Rick and Layla’s. I know when you first said you’d take your time, you were referring to just the sex, but—It’s more than that for me.“

“It’s been more than that for me for a while.” Nick basks in Joe’s smile, feeling his cock pulse as he watches something behind Joe’s eyes burn for him. Nicky turns his head to kiss a trail to the inside of Joe’s knee. “Joe? When we get to the next time? Make sure you invite me for the beginning.”

Dragging the prickle of last night’s stubble down the soft, paler skin of Joe’s inner thigh, Nicky smiles. “For a week, I’ve been thinking about what this spot would smell like.” He kisses a patch of dark curls and feels Joe’s cock twitch against his cheek. “I’ve also been thinking about what it would taste like. This, and a few other spots.” He’s smirking, and it’s the first time since he’d still referred to Joe as Pocket Guy that Nicky feels like he’s definitely got the upper hand. "Lie back; this may take a while.”

It’s true that he’d been thinking about this. From the time Joe slid his hands into his pajama pants on that first FaceTime, Nicky’s wanted to bury his nose in this spot.

The night they’d met in person, in the bathroom, Joe had hissed when Nicky pinched his nipple, and that sound has been haunting Nicky’s dreams. Pushing himself up Joe’s body, he takes that same nipple into his mouth, sucking it, licking it, feeling it get stiff against his tongue. As he sucks, Nicky puts his palm flat against Joe’s cock, giving him something to grind against, but not enough to get off.

The first time Joe visited, when Nicky tasked him with making the asparagus, the sight of Joe in a pair of criminally well-fitted jeans tormented him. Nicky’s hands itched, needing to grab handfuls of Joe’s ass, grip them until the flesh dimpled under his fingers and haul Joe close so they could kiss for hours. Now, Nicky has the time, has all the time he could want. With that luxury of time, he’s clutching Joe, gripping and pulling, holding his ass wide so Nicky can brush a finger over his hole. When he does, Joe rocks against his thigh as Nicky kisses him breathless.

The place behind Joe’s ear, the place Nicky had been able to see while Joe’s fell asleep on the couch, his head lolling to one side, that place needs to be kissed. It needs to have Nicky’s teeth dragged over it. He’s gripping Joe’s waist now, his hips, and feeling him struggling for more contact.

In the grand scheme, they haven’t been waiting that long—two weeks, at most. Couples wait that long all the time. Unlike some couples who wait that long, Joe and Nicky have reached for this moment since the first time their mouths touched. They only needed the universe to get the fuck out of their way.

Nicky digs shoulder-deep—or so it feels—into the drawer of the table on Joe’s side of the bed. Arching above Joe like this, Nicky is opening every soft, vulnerable spot he has. Just as his fingers close around the lube, a sharp thread of pleasure mixed with pain lances across Nicky’s chest. Hot and slick, Joe’s tongue swipes across the chunk of Nicky’s flesh held between his teeth. 

“Good,” Nicky groans. “So good, please.” He would stay like this all day, letting Joe feast on him, three square inches at a time. “Please, Joe.” Raking his tongue over Nicky’s skin one last time, Joe pulls back.

Nicky kneels between Joe’s knees. “Lift.” Fingers curled against Joe’s lower back, Nicky urges him up and slips a pillow into the gap it makes under Joe’s hips. After the tugging and moving and rearranging is over, Joe is on his back, his legs draped over Nicky’s wide-spread thighs, his hips canted up by the pillow, and his chest draped in a necklace of sweat. 

  
Nicky drags his palms up Joe’s thighs, framing thumb and forefingers framing his cock, then back down to cup Joe’s knees. A reassuring touch, a grounding anchor in the middle of what could be a haze of lust and whispers. “I feel as though every time we talk, I open my mouth, and things come out that I’d wanted to say but hadn’t meant to.” Bending, he kisses Joe above his right hip. 

“Me too.”

“I worried I would scare you away.”

Joe reaches down and takes Nicky’s hand. “Me too,” he says, more breath and sound than words. 

“Did I?” 

“Never.” Joe shakes his head.

Nicky smiles. “Every time you slipped, you only said words I had in my head, too.” Joe’s knuckles are dry and warm against Nicky’s mouth. In his head, Nicky can hear Joe saying that he’d do weeks of video calls just to spend time with Nicky, that it’s not only about finishing that bathroom makeout. If he’s somehow managed not to ruin this with weeks of verbal train-wrecks, well— “I don’t want to waste any of my time or thoughts worrying about what I might say. Not right now.”

“Then don’t.”

“So I just say what’s in my head, and you just say what’s in your head—“

“And we settle up later. We figure out what we were serious about and what was just the moment.”

Nicky kneels up and bends forward, nearly folding Joe in half to kiss him. “In that case—You belong in my bed.” He moves back to sitting on his heels, drinking in the sight of Joe, here, finally. “I’ve dreamed this very sight for weeks; there’s never been anything as perfect as you against my sheets. My pillows will smell like you, and it will be torture if you’re further away than the kitchen. Waking up with you holding me feels better than I could have imagined, and I will miss you every day I wake up without you beside me.”

“Nicky.” A shiver twitches across Joe’s chest. 

“Did that hit a nerve? I can’t tell. Was it good?” Joe’s cock is searing hot when Nicky grips it. “Or bad?”

“Shit! Nicky!” Joe’s hips buck up, fucking his cock into Nickys’ grip.

Bracing his hands at the top of Joe’s inner thighs, Nicky pushes gently, using his thumbs to spread Joe’s ass. “Look how slick you are. I imagined getting to see this for the first time at night, like a secret thing. It’s better like this, in the morning light.” He sweeps one thumb over Joe’s hole, watching it twitch, then give under the pressure. 

Joe gasps, and his shoulders twist against the sheets. 

“Did you think about that, when you were stretching yourself this morning? That I’d spread you open and look at you in the daylight?”

Rolling his face into a pillow, Joe whines, and nods.

“You did. If you’d closed the curtains, we could have slept for another hour, but you left them open, you wanted me to see. Oh, Joe.” Nicky’s voice rumbles like thunder, a passing train. His other thumb joins the first and pushes in. When Joe stops bucking and thrashing, Nicky hooks them in opposite directions and tugs. 

Joe hisses, gasps as he’s stretched. “Nicky, Nicky, your hands. Nicky, please, you feel so good. Your hands are perfect. More, Nicky!”

“Can I tell you something you missed while you were hunting around this morning, Detective? Just a bit further back in the drawer where you found this lube are the flavored ones. If you’d used one of those, I’d push your knees back right now and lick you open for as long as you could stand it. Keep that in mind, the next time you start thinking you’d like to be on display.”

Fingers digging into Joe’s hips, Nicky heaves him closer. With his legs splayed even wider over Nicky’s lap, Joe works his way up onto his elbows, watching Nicky dribble lube into his hand then grip himself.

“I should make you close your eyes while I do this, just as payback for not letting me see you stretching yourself earlier.” Nicky can’t keep his eyes open the first time he pushes his cock up into his tight-clenched fist. His face twists as he skims the line between pleasure and pain. In a flash, Nicky’s eyes flick open, and if Joe knew better, he’d be deeply apprehensive about that look. It’s a kind of wicked glee Nicky only gets when he’s very excited about a terrible idea.

Slicking himself up a little more, Nicky lines his cock up with the split of Joe’s ass and curls his hips. The head of his cock drags between the two halves, catching momentarily on the edge of Joe’s hole then further up to nudge at the back of his balls. “Tell me, Joe.” He’s settled into a rhythm now, fucking Joe’s cleft. Every time Nicky’s cock slips over his hole, Joe’s cock twitches, jumps, then drops with a wet slap onto the pool he’s been dripping onto his belly.

It’s fucking hypnotic, and Nicky loses his train of thought for a second. He had plans, was going to make Joe beg, but fuck that. His hole is so hot, and it’s right there. With barely a shift of the angle on the next thrust, Nicky could be inside him. Inside that tight—so tight—Right, that’s where he was.

“Tell me, how thorough were you?” 

“What?”

“I wasn’t there, Joe, how much time did you take? Did you try to guess how long I would have taken? You’ve been listening to me for a week and a half talking about getting you in this exact spot. How much patience did you think I’d have? Will you be this tight?” 

Joe shouts, back arching, as Nicky’s lube-slick hand grips him. “So good, Nicky, your hand feels so good. I need more. I need the rest of you. Need to feel you. Needed it for weeks. I can feel you pushing against my hole, Nicky, _please_.”

Nicky isn’t finished yet. There’s the genuine possibility that he will _never_ be finished teasing and tormenting and needing this man. He tightens his grip. “If you were in a hurry, wanting only to feel me inside you, it would be more like this.” 

He smirks, and Joe should be more than worried now.

Suddenly, Nicky’s barely touching Joe. The circle of his hand is so loose it’s almost worse than nothing at all. “On the other hand, if you were very careful, if you thought I would take my time with that part, you might be this open, this stretched right now.” Every time Nicky fucks himself along Joe’s ass, he’s fucking Joe’s cock into his hand the slightest bit. Now, feeling only the ghost of that touch, Joe starts twisting his hips, trying to get more contact. 

He’s muttering under his breath, words Nicky can’t understand. The next thrust should be like all the others, but Joe twists just the right way at just the right time, and Nicky’s cock catches at the edge of his hole and holds, just for a second.

“Oh, god, fuck!” Joe shouts. The rest of the words he says are just as loud and just as vehement, but in a language Nicky doesn’t even recognize, let alone speak. Nicky stops moving.

“Did you switch languages _just_ to curse at me?”

Joe blinks his eyes, comes back to himself a bit. “I—Yes? Some languages are good for.” He shakes his head, trying to get some of the blood back in his brain. “Are we really going to—“ his grunt is a mixture of disgusted and exasperated. "Some languages are better suited for certain purposes than others. Like Italian for seduction.” He squirms again, making it clear he’d prefer to get the fuck on with things.

“And for cursing?”

“Nicky, we were just—“

Calmly, Nicky puts both hands out too his sides, open and empty. He’s no longer touching Joe anywhere except his lap. Joe whines then flops back against the pillows.

“Hungarian. It’s best for swearing. I don’t speak it, but I know enough to know it’s the right language for when the man of my dreams won’t quit fucking around long enough to get his cock inside me!”

He sounds so much more indignant than you’d expect from a man in a sprawl that graceless. Nicky doesn’t want to laugh, but as always, his best intentions go out the window when Joe is in the room. Joe catches his eye, huffs a laugh of his own. 

“Here,” Nicky says, reaching for Joe. Their hands clasped, Nicky pulls Joe up and in, wrapping his arms around Joe’s back and kissing him. “You were too far away; I needed to kiss you.”

“I always need to kiss you.”

In this position, Nicky’s cock is snugged into the crease of Joe’s ass. As Joe wriggles closer to Nicky, deepening their kiss, Nicky’s cock twitches with renewed interest. Grabbing Joe’s hips, Nicky rocks up into that hot, slick slide again and again. Joe is gasping into his mouth, moaning against his neck.

“How do you feel so fucking good? That feels so good. I love that. Love it. Love it, Nicky, please.” Joe is clutching at his back, and Nicky can feel the blunt edges of his fingernails digging in. Like everything else about having Joe in his arms, and in his bed, it feels fantastic.

Nicky pushes gently and lowers Joe onto his elbows again. He gives a few more lazy thrusts, feeling Joe’s hips rolling as he tries to angle himself the right way to get Nicky into him. 

Tearing open a condom with one hand covered in lube is an iffy proposition at best, which is why Nicky’s glad he did it before things got that far. He slips it out of the wrapper and rolls it on. Another dribble of lube to slick himself like this before Nicky kneels up, then braces himself with his right elbow next to Joe’s head, looking into Joe’s eyes.

They’re as incredible as the first time Nicky saw them. Better, even, for the familiarity. Because Nicky has learned what these eyes look smiling, tired, frustrated, sad, even excited. And now, Nicky knows what they look like when Joe’s entire world has condensed down to the space of this bed and the two men in it. This is more than lust or hunger, but Nicky knows now isn't the time to name it.

He noses up under Joe’s jaw, kissing him there, as he uses the hand he’s not bracing on to slot the head of his cock against Joe’s hole. 

Holding himself above Joe, not moving, Nicky looks down the length of their bodies and sees Joe’s cock, weeping against his own belly; he’s going to enjoy licking that spot clean later.

“Nicky. Hey.” Raising his head again, Nicky meets Joe’s eyes. “Please don’t stop. I’ve wanted this since you walked through Rick’s door. Please, Nicky. _Please._ P—“ Joe gasps and doesn’t exhale, doesn’t make a sound as Nicky starts to push.

Joe had been in a hurry. Either that or Nicky’s drawn out this torment longer than he meant to because Joe is almost impossibly tight. He has Joe’s face framed by his forearms, is looking into Joe’s eyes as rocks himself forward, again and again, feeling the head of his cock kissing Joe’s hole each time. With every push, Nicky slides a little deeper. “We can stretch you more; I can stop—“

Grabbing his hair, Joe kisses him. “If you stop, I will tie you to the bed and make you watch as I fuck the toy I found in the other drawer.”

Nicky can’t hold back his moan at that image. “Right. I’ll keep going then, but tell me if it hurts in a bad way, if you need me to stop.” He pushes forward again, can feel that the head is almost all the way in. “And file that idea away for later, yes?”

Another push and Nicky can feel the head of his cock almost pop through the inner ring of muscle. Joe clenches tight, relaxes, then clenches again.

“Oh, god, oh, fuck. Oh fuck, fuck, how does that feel so good? Nicky! I need more. I need to feel all of you. Nicky, more!”

Nicky pulls back. Joe’s hands scrabble at his back, his hips, trying to hold Nicky inside him. “No, no no no, Nicky no!” He can feel the ridge at the head of his cock tugging at Joe’s hole, and he knows how good it must feel to Joe.

Beneath him, Joe is staring, wide-eyed. His mouth drops open in a silent wail, then the breath is punched out of him as Nicky pushes back in. Only as far as before, no deeper, just giving Joe a hint of how a full stroke might feel.

“Nicky! Fuck!”

His arms start to ache, but Nicky doesn’t move. Joe is watching him, waiting for any movement, his hands are clenching and releasing Nicky’s hair. 

“Nicky.”

A quick dip of his head and Nicky is kissing him. It’s sweet and deep, and when it’s over, Joe looks up at him, a question on his face.

“Nicky?”

“So eager for this, you got up early and got yourself ready without me.” He kisses the spot just in front of Joe’s ear. “If you want it that much,” he whispers in Joe’s ear. “Come get it.”

Very deliberately, Nicky goes back to not moving at all.

From the memories of their conversations last week, Joe pulls a phrase. “I feel like I should have known about this vicious streak you have.”

Nicky smirks at him. 

Locking his legs around Nicky as best he can, Joe curls his hips and fucks himself onto Nicky’s cock. His groan is guttural, heavy with want. Again, Nicky can feel himself slide in, but not much deeper than last time. 

“Yes,” Nicky says as Joe tries again to get him deeper. “Mmm, yes.”

Having his legs there isn’t working, so Joe squirms until he has one foot planted on the bed and one hand braced against the headboard. He pushes himself up again. Feeling his cock slip deeper, Nicky rolls his head on his neck, his jaw clenched. With leverage on his side, Joe is pulling Nicky deeper and deeper. 

“Nicky. Please, baby, Nicky, I need. I can’t do it myself, Nicky. I can’t do it myself, and I need it, Nicky. All week I’ve thought about having you as deep as you could get, and I can’t do it like this. Not without you helping, Nicky, please.”

In the end, Nicky is only human. How is he supposed to hold out in the face of Joe confessing he’d spent days fantasizing about Nicky buried inside him? Nicky and his breaths move in opposition. A gasped breath in as he pulls out, then a shouted exhale as he drives himself in.

“Yes. Yes yes, thank you. Fuck Nicky, yes, that’s perfect. Oh, fuck, baby, perfect.”

Nicky rolls his hips at the end, and Joe groans and clutches his shoulders. When Nicky starts to pull back, he can feel hands grabbing his back, trying to pull him in. 

“Nicky—fuck!” Joe’s eyes slam shut as Nicky thrusts back in.

He keeps up these long, deep thrusts until he can see sweat rolling back from Joe’s temples into his hair. Nicky ducks his head and licks that spot, tasting the salt of Joe’s need, heavy and perfect on his tongue.

“You’re perfect. The way you look right now. Shameless. I love seeing you like this. Ah, fuck, perfect. God, fuck, Joe, so good.”

Because it’s been at least five minutes since the last one, Nicky kisses him. Joe’s arms encircle his neck, keeping him close. It feels incredible to have Joe wrapped around him in so many ways, but it’s keeping Nicky from what he wants to do next. Maybe later, or tomorrow, they can do this again and stay wrapped up like that the whole time. They’ll be so sweat-slick, perfect for just grinding.

Not now, though. Nicky puts another hooking roll of his hips at the end of the next thrust, and Joe’s arms go just loose enough for Nicky to kneel up. Joe looks ready to protest until Nicky shifts with the movement and slides further in. “Nicky!”

He's found the perfect angle to drive himself even deeper, and Nicky rolls his hips into it. Joe hooks his thighs over Nicky’s and tries to meet him on each thrust.

“Did you think about having me this deep?”

Joe’s eyes are wild. “No. I. Fuck, Nicky, no.” The next roll of Nicky’s hips hits something inside him, and Joe braces himself against the headboard again, pushing down into each thrust. His cock, flushed almost purple and weeping, jerks against his belly again. 

Nicky has one last trick up his sleeve, one last thing he wants for this round. He spreads Joe’s thighs as wide as they’ll go, then leans back slightly. The way he’s grabbing Joe’s hips is not only helping Nicky hold himself up, but it’s also pulling Joe closer. At this angle, Nicky can work his hips up into Joe each time he pulls Joe down onto him.

“This is as much of me as I can give you, my Joe. My perfect Joe.”

Mouth hanging open, Joe is muttering, senseless. As Nicky gets faster, Joe gets louder. Finally, Nicky recognizes the sound Joe’s been making. He’s been saying Nicky’s name over and over.

“You feel so good, so tight around me. So perfect for me, you’re so perfect.” Nicky will never be able to put into words the way Joe feels against him right now, but that won’t stop him from trying. “You’re so hot around me, and I can smell your skin, can see where you’re dripping on yourself.” Nicky swipes a finger through the puddle Joe’s been making, then sucks it clean. “Perfect, even that. One of these times, I’m going to get you in my mouth before you’re hard and keep you there until you almost can’t stand it, just to make sure I taste every drop.”

“Fucking hell, Nicky! Finish killing me this time—Ah, shit, yes again, so good—before you start thinking about how to kill me twenty times from now. Oh god, Nicky. Baby, please. Please, Nicky. Please!”

A small part of Nicky wants to stay buried in Joe like this all day, to keep himself and his lover straining for release. Because he’s never felt as good as he does right now, on the verge of shouting his climax to the rafters and dragging Joe over with him, never even dreamed he _could_ feel this good.

“Do you want my hand now or my mouth after I finish?”

“Hand, please, Nicky! Please let me come with you, please. Nicky, PLEASE!” A single, fat tear rolls back from the corner of Joe’s eye and into his hair.

There it is. He’d said ’tears in your eyes from begging.’ Joe’s been begging for what feels like hours, and even one tear is enough for Nicky to have kept his promise. Nicky licks his hand and wraps it around Joe’s poor, neglected cock. Joe shouts and clutches at the sheets.

“Beautiful,” Nicky says. “You’re so beautiful. Fuck, Joe, how are you so perfect?” 

“Thank you, oh fuck, Nicky, thank you. Fuck me, stroke me, please, don’t stop Nicky. Baby, please don’t stop.”

It seems like such a small thing, especially since it’s not even the first time he’s said it in the last few minutes, but hearing that endearment from Joe grabs Nicky’s attention. He remembers Joe on his couch, laughing. Joe in his kitchen, talking, and cooking. Joe curled in his chair at home, smiling at Nicky while they spoke across an ocean.

Knowing he gets all those smiles, in addition to the fucked-out, blissful smile Joe has right now, is what pushes Nicky over.

Maybe Joe comes as he does, maybe it takes a few seconds longer, Nicky’s not touching reality enough to know. It feels like something rushes up his spine and grips the back of his head, pulsing pleasure into every part of his body. When he opens his eyes again, his hand is sticky with Joe’s come, and Joe is reaching for him.

It’s not graceful, but Nicky ends up sprawled across Joe’s chest, licking his hand clean, then burying his face in Joe’s neck. When he catches his breath, he takes a second to dispose of the condom, then flops back down into the same spot. Joe cards his fingers through Nicky's hair, kissing his head and whispering to Nicky in a language Nicky thinks he recognizes but doesn’t understand. He kisses Joe’s neck and drifts for a few minutes.

“Is that Arabic?”

“Mm.”

“If you curse in Hungarian and seduce in Italian, what do you use Arabic for?”

“Poetry,” Joe says, pushing Nicky’s hair back from his forehead to kiss him. “And everything else.”

“We said it before, but I missed you.”

“You can say it again if you want. I missed you, too. More than I expected for someone I’d been on two dates with. Well, a date and a half.”

“You say that like a man who doesn’t want to know how the bathtub jets work.”

“You trying to seduce me with plumbing? Because I gotta tell you, Nicky, I’m a sure thing at this point.”

Their bath is surprisingly tame, only a few wandering hands and a couple of sloppy kisses. 

“Do I need to, what was it you called it? ’Settle up’ for anything I said?”

“Did you mean it all?” Joe asks. Nicky nods. “Then no, you don’t. Nicky,” Joe cups his face with one wet hand and holds his eyes. “Nothing you’ve done or said since the moment I met you has done anything but make me want you, want to be with you, more.”

The answer to that, as it has been every other time Joe’s said something that perfect, is to kiss him until it feels like they’re out of air.

“On the other hand,” Nicky says, “ _you_ have something to answer for.”

A flicker of nervousness skates across Joe’s face, but he seems to take some reassurance from being naked, fuck drunk, and wrapped in Nicky’s arms. “Do I?”

“Did you call me ‘baby?’ More than once?”

Calmly, Joe reaches over and flips the jets back on; the noise fills the bathroom. “What?! I can’t hear you!”


	7. for i am in love with you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicky kisses along Joe’s back. He’s not trying to start anything, just making the picture real. Rolling onto his side, Joe reaches for the piece of food he’d been eyeing before. Before him is Nicky, cross-legged, smiling. His hair looks precisely like it was combed by the fingers of someone in the middle of an orgasm. He’s so beautiful it hurts for a second.
> 
> “I think,” Nicky chews the rest of the orange slice. “I think I owe you a story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: Oh my god you guys, mieraspeller over on tumblr made the MOST AMAZING art! Please go check it out and give it the adoration it deserves. It straight up made me cry when I got it. [Gorgeousness this way.](https://hesnotmy.tumblr.com/post/635712476269494272/that-scene-in-the-other-side-of-this-wide-night-by)
> 
> AUTHOR UPDATE (sorry it's so long): If you're here on a reread, you may notice that sections have been altered to mitigate/eliminate/address some offensive and problematic issues with the original. I had failed to consider how separately conceived ideas would look when assembled as a whole. The result was hurtful, ignorant, and disrespectful, and it created a text that was entirely at odds with the world I wanted to create. I'm sorry.
> 
> I'm grateful that someone pointed out what I'd done. Hopefully, by editing this chapter and the epilogue, I won't offend or hurt any future readers. Speaking of the future, I would rather eat glass than fuck up like this again, so I have a request. I ask and encourage anyone who sees problematic content any of my work (including any that might be left here) that I might have missed, either by oversight or by ignorance, to please let me know. I'm the last person who will get my dander up and assume I didn't do anything wrong, and the first person to own up to my mistakes and try to fix them, both as they stand, and in the future.

~

By the time they’re out of the bath, the coffee is stone cold. The bagels are hard enough that Nicky briefly imagines future archaeologists discovering them, one dig square over from the bin with the tied-off condom in it. He hopes they’d ascribe it all to some kind of intricate mating ritual. Which, he supposes, is accurate.

“Thank you again for looking after me this morning,” Nicky says, tugging a shirt over his head. He can’t resist kissing Joe, and frankly, he’d be insulted if you expected him to. “If you’ll sweet-talk the coffee maker again, I’ll see who’s delivering.”

While they’re waiting for the food, Nicky throws a huge, eclectically embroidered blanket over the entire mattress. “I love breakfast in bed, but I’m too old to be digging bits of pastry out of my back later. This keeps the crumbs out.” 

Just as Joe finishes doctoring their coffee, the food arrives. “I’ll get it,” Nicky says. On his way up, he grabs a few of the more comfortable pillows from the couch. They scatter the pillows on the bed, and while Joe is opening the containers of food, Nicky adjusts the blinds on the window. In about an hour and a half, the sun will be beating directly in those windows. He knows this room turns from comfortable sex den to overachieving sauna in minutes.

They’re halfway through the fruit, the remains of croissants strewn about them, and Joe wants to kiss Nicky. It’s not an unusual want, he’s been dealing with it for a couple of weeks, but now he _can._ Next to him, Nicky is on his back, the hand holding his book is in the air above him. He licks a bit of strawberry juice off his thumb before he turns the page.

Joe pushes up on one arm, bracing himself over Nicky, sucking the taste of berries off his lips, licking it from his tongue. 

“I’m glad you’re here.” Nicky’s voice is low, quiet, and it makes something flip over in the pit of Joe’s belly.

“Me too.” Pillowing his head on his arms, Joe sits and listens to the fan turning, to Nicky breathing. 

He goes to reach for another chunk of frittata when Nicky says, “Don’t. Move.”

“Okay. Why?”

“Just. It’s nothing bad, I promise. I only need a second.” With his eyes closed, Joe doesn’t see Nicky’s arm move, so the feeling of a finger tracing the length of his spine is a surprise. “When we were at Rick and Layla’s, that first night, I had this daydream, just a picture, really. It was you. Like this.”

“Like?”

“In my bed, with the sun on your back. It was just a wish. It wasn’t a premonition. For one thing, you weren’t wearing these.” He snaps the waist of Joe’s pajama pants. “But also you were asleep, so you didn’t look quite so…”

“Happy?”

“Well-fucked. But, yes, also happy.”

Nicky kisses along Joe’s back. He’s not trying to start anything, just making the picture real. Rolling onto his side, Joe reaches for the piece of food he’d been eyeing before. Before him is Nicky, cross-legged, smiling. His hair looks precisely like it was combed by the fingers of someone in the middle of an orgasm. He’s so beautiful it hurts for a second.

“I think,” Nicky chews the rest of the orange slice. “I think I owe you a story.”

Joe’s belly clenches. If they hadn’t explicitly answered this exact fear, Joe might have worried this moment was the beginning of the end. That after this story, they’d have no reason to see each other. He knows better, and the reassuring weight of Nicky’s hand on his knee helps remind him of that.

“So long ago it seems like another lifetime, in a far-off country, a man was walking along the seashore.”

A shaft of afternoon sun cuts across the bed, striping Nicky’s feet, and Joe can see the dust motes drifting along like lazy smoke. Behind Nicky is a pile of pillows and cushions, including the soft velvet ones from the sofa downstairs. 

“He’d been walking for hours with no destination in mind and was considering stopping to eat the food he’d brought with him. Just then, he looked up and saw another man, in the distance, walking in his direction.”

Joe is enthralled watching Nicky, reclining against his cushions, the intricately patterned blanket under him, spinning his tale in the voice of—

Once he starts laughing, it’s hard to stop. 

“God, Nicky, you’re such a shit! Jess is going to love you. I watched you do all this, and didn’t even put it together until just now.”

Propped on a velvet pillow, every inch the beguiling raconteur, Nicky gives him a one-shouldered shrug. His smile is conspiratorial and unrepentant. 

“Wait. Oh, Nicky, wait. You didn’t only do this because of Jess, you did this _for_ Jess, didn’t you? Because you knew I’d tell this story.”

“If she’s going to think of me as a Scheherazade, I wouldn’t want to disappoint her.”

"Do people know you’re a troll, Nicky?”

“Not until it’s too late, usually.” 

Joe sits up enough to hook an arm around Nicky’s neck and drag him down for a messy, delighted kiss. “I can’t decide if you wanted me to notice it now, or not until I retold this story to Jess.”

“I would have been happy with either.” Nicky kisses like he smiles, warm, and a little wicked, and so, so sweet. “May I continue?”

Joe waves his hand in the manner of all indulgent sultans.

“As I was saying, around three years ago, I met a man while I was on holiday. He was beautiful. Though,” Nicky strokes his hand along Joe’s side. “Nothing close to you.”

Joe grabs his hand and kisses the pads of his fingers.

“It wasn’t a good relationship, and it didn’t last very long. I think he looked at where we’d met, and how, and assumed things about me. I, on the other hand, was too busy at work to notice him assuming these things. Even if I had, I wasn’t invested enough to care. Still, we had some very entertaining fights, in hindsight.”

Joe licks a bit of egg off his finger. “Did this prince among men have a name?”

“I believe my sister still calls him Fucking Josh.”

“I like her already.”

“Half his family came from old money, and half came from new, and he had the worst snobbery of both kinds. You can imagine how thinking you know best combines with being obsessed with appearances. The night of our last fight, he stormed out without telling me where he was going. From what you’ve said, it sounds like he ended up at a bar with a friend, though whether to cry in his beer or curse my name, I have no idea. At some point, he went and graffitied the bathroom wall.”

“Right. But what does it _mean_.”

“Joe, what kind of mood do you think a man would have to be in to write a message about someone else on a bathroom wall? Not even that message, just any message.”

“Petty. Mean. Bitter.”

“Right. Now, think about Fucking Josh. What’s important to men like him?”

“Appearances,” Joe says. “Pretension. Control.”

“Exactly. Now, think about this pretentious, controlling, superficial man when he feels petty, mean, and bitter. If he writes a message like that, what does it mean?”

Joe can’t be angry at the simplicity of the answer, because if he hadn’t assumed some complex meaning, he wouldn’t be here, now, with Nicky. With _his_ Nicky, who looks at Joe like he’s a miracle. 

He smiles. “It means you eat sushi with a fork.”

“Sometimes. Especially if I'm at home, at the end of a long day, and my eyes are tired enough to aggravate some small close-distance spatial perception issues. Josh didn’t know about that, because he didn’t ask. By the time we had that fight, I wouldn’t have told him anyway. He didn’t deserve as much of me as he got, and I wasn’t giving him anymore.” He plucks at a loose thread on one of the pillows. “Are you disappointed?”

“I might have been before I knew you, but knowing you, the fact that it’s so ordinary makes it funnier. He probably thought that was the height of insults.” Joe groans. “Even worse, every time someone told him it wasn’t, he probably just assumed he was better than them because this is the kind of shit he cares about. Fucking _Josh_.”

As Joe is talking, Nicky stacks the dirty plates and moves them to the floor. He replaces the lids on the food containers and brushes away the worst of the crumbs.

“Joe.” Nicky kisses him, presses their foreheads together. “He doesn’t deserve any of you, either. He certainly doesn’t deserve any of this day. Tell me something else you thought about while I was gone, and let me see if I can get rid of him for good.”

Delighted by the idea, Joe makes a few suggestions Nicky gladly undertakes. He discovers, in the best possible way, that if he slides his finger into Joe’s asshole alongside his tongue, curving it just the right way, he can keep Joe riding the edge for over an hour. He also learns exactly how creative Joe can be with his gratitude.

When Nicky makes it downstairs with the dishes, Joe is standing, shirtless and barefoot, in front of the open refrigerator. 

For a second, Nicky’s brain makes a high-pitched whirring noise as it tries to keep up. It’s everything Nicky can do not to toss Joe over one shoulder and haul him back upstairs.

“What would you like for dinner?”

Dinner. Food. Think, Nicky.

“I hadn’t thought about it. Normally things are pretty well stocked, but there isn’t much in the house because I knew I’d be gone for a few days. If you tell me what kind of food you might be in the mood for, I can see what delivery options we’ve got.” 

Joe stands, closing the door as he turns. “Let me try that again. What would you like me to cook for dinner?”

Nicky blinks. “Why would you cook dinner?”

“Because.” Joe seems at a loss for how to answer that. “Why would I not?” He rests his elbows on the counter, and Nicky is momentarily distracted by the way his muscles move under all that gorgeous skin. “I know I griped about my cupboard earlier this week, but I like cooking. I especially like cooking _for_ people.” Joe’s ears go slightly pink, and the next thing he says is quieter, softer. “I’m going to want to take care of you, and do things like this for you. That’s something you should probably get used to.”

“But I—“

“Had a long week, and you had a long day yesterday. This is the same thing I’d be doing if I were home.” Joe scratches his beard, trying not to fidget. "If it helps, think of it as you letting me use your kitchen, which is much nicer than mine.”

Somehow that sits easier with Nicky. “In that case, why don’t you make what you’d make for yourself?”

“Hmm.” Joe leans back against the sink, his arms crossed over his chest. “Friday night. Whole weekend ahead. Most beautiful man in the world, spending it with me.” He winks at Nicky, and Nicky’s heart does something embarrassing. “How does breakfast for dinner sound?”

It sounds fucking amazing, which is what he tells Joe.

Joe spends a happy ten minutes rooting through Nicky’s kitchen for ingredients and supplies. At one point, he finds a jar of roasted tomato salsa in the back of the pantry. “Can I use this?”

“You can have anything,” Nicky says, and the way Joe smiles back at him, they both know he’s talking about more than the contents of Nickys’ cupboards. 

“I think I only need a few things, and they’re not exotic.” Joe flicks through his phone until he finds the right app for grocery delivery. When the app prompts for an address, Joe grabs the magazine at the end of the counter and checks the mailing label. “Later, Nicky, we’re going to talk about why you have a subscription to Cranes Today magazine."

The reason Nicky has a subscription to “Cranes Today” is purely for his own entertainment. As Joe himself rightly pointed out, Nicky is an enormous troll. Each time an issue comes, Nicky will leave it in the bathroom used most often by guests, knowing that they will stare at it, stymied, just like Joe is. They will wonder if there’s some side of Nicky they don’t know. Does he have a past career in heavy construction? Is he just a large-machine enthusiast? On rare, very rare, occasions, someone will actually ask Nicky why he subscribes to this magazine. Each time, his reply is the same. With the solemnity of someone telling you that you’ve been turned down for a loan, Nicky will say, ‘For the articles.’

"Okay. Groceries will be here in about an hour and a half. Most of the things we need for this are really ordinary, but it’s much better if I have one or two…” he trails off as he starts poking into cabinets. 

Over the next half hour, Joe assembles most of the tools he needs and lays out some ingredients. The last thing he needs has him stumped until he checks in the oven. “Ah! Here we are.” 

The cast-iron skillet makes a satisfying _thunk_ as Joe sets it on the burner. He walks around the counter, stepping into Nicky’s space. “Actual cast iron. That’s pretty sexy, Nicky.”

Nicky doesn’t have a response. In fact, since they got downstairs, he’s been feeling decidedly off-kilter. Something about watching Joe, in his kitchen, getting ready to cook for Nicky just because he wants to—Nicky’s not sure what to do with this. After this morning, when Nicky had felt like he knew what to do and what should come next, it’s disconcerting to be back on uneven ground.

When Joe leans closer, Nicky thinks, ‘Yes, this I know how to handle,’ just before he wraps his arms around Joe and pulls him close enough to kiss. The smell that fills Nicky’s nose is a mix of Joe’s skin and his beard oil, it’s heady, and Nicky can feel his toes curl against the cool tile floor. Joe’s back is warm under his hands, his tongue moving against Nicky’s in lazy strokes. Nicky sighs, impossibly content. He could fall into this kiss and never come up again. The soft scrape of Joe’s beard across his chin is what grounds Nicky in the present.

“You smell so good,” Nicky says, and Joe grins.

“I like this,” he says. Nicky arches an eyebrow in question. “Getting to kiss you for as long as I want,” Joe says, lifting his chin as Nicky kisses the curve of his jaw. “Neither of us has to be anywhere, neither of us is falling asleep.” 

He’s right, Nicky knows it. Almost more than the sweat-soaked dream of the morning’s exertions, this unhurried intimacy is the thing Nicky’s been craving. It comes over him in a wave, and Nicky presses closer, kissing Joe again, sliding one hand up to the back of his head to grip his hair. 

Nicky nips at his neck, and Joe gasps. “God, baby, that’s not fair. The delivery is going to be here soon, and I’m not answering the door with a hard-on.”

“I _knew_ I heard that earlier.”

The sound of the doorbell startles them both.

“Hold that thought,” Joe says. 

Nicky can hear him talking to the delivery driver, and a minute or two later, Joe’s back in the kitchen with a couple of grocery bags in each hand. “I got a few other things besides what we need for dinner. This way, we don’t have to go out until we want to.” 

Having settled on a stool, Nicky pokes through the bags. “It’s like some kind of statistical anomaly. Half of these things are my favorite foods, and the other half are like some kind of horrible dare.” He holds up a bag full of popcorn, roughly the same bright orange color as a nuclear waste warning sign. 

The flavor, according to the packaging, is ‘cheez.’ 

“Why would you do this to yourself?”

Joe laughs, snatching it out of his hands. “No one’s forcing you to eat any of it, jackass.”

“No. Which is good, because otherwise, I think we’re looking at several international human rights violations.” Nicky holds up a couple of canisters of the kind of thing his roommates subsisted on in college.

“Just for that, I’m hiding everything.” He's trying to sound tough, but he can’t stop snickering. Grabbing his phone, Joe sends a quick text, then starts measuring ingredients. Nicky watches his gaze flick to his phone a few times, waiting for a response. When Joe hears the phone ring, rather than the text alert, he groans and drops his head back, staring at the ceiling. He stretches the “Shit” out into several syllables.

Looking back at Nicky, Joe grimaces, “You should feel free to pretend you’re not here. It’ll probably be easier for you.” He swipes to answer the call. “Is there a reason you couldn’t just send me the answer?”

From the phone comes a young woman’s voice. She sounds a bit like Joe, but mostly that’s because of the intonation. Nicky grins but stays quiet.

“You’re still there,” she says.

“Jess, I just need the ratio.”

“Right, but if you were at home, this recipe is in a binder on your shelf. So you’re still there.”

“Okay. Yes. Now give me the ratio.”

“You’re still there, and now you’re making breakfast tacos for dinner. Oh, my darling brother, you’re—Hey! Am I on speaker?”

“Jess.” Joe props his elbows on the counter and drops his head into his hands. “Once a year, you decide to have mercy on me and just let something go, and I’m begging you to let this year’s be now.”

“Chances are good that in the near future, you’ll have to let an unsuspecting date sit in a room with your sisters, and _now_ is when you want me to have mercy on you, Yusuf? Now?”

Nicky’s been trying so hard not to laugh because this is precisely the conversation he’d be having with Anna if their roles were reversed, but this trips him up. That’s the first name he ever heard someone call Joe. It’s a name Nicky used in his head before they met. He grins at Joe and whispers, “Yusuf,” testing the name in his mouth for the first time since the man in front of him became Joe and stopped being Pocket Yusuf.

Joe looks up at Nicky, his eyes pleading. 

“I heard that!” Jess says, and Joe’s head drops to the counter with a _thud_. 

“Nicky,” he says, “this is Jess, who I begged my parents to take back and get a puppy instead. Jess, this is Nicky, who would probably like to eat at some point, so it would be great if you could give me the fucking ratio I asked for.”

Her voice brightens. “Hi, Nicky. So nice to talk to you.”

“Nice to talk to you as well.” Joe's expression is now slightly betrayed, and Nicky can only shrug. What was he supposed to do?

“He’s about to make you my favorite thing he cooks.”

“Just having him in my house makes me the luckiest man I know. I promise you; I’ll make sure he knows how much I appreciate him cooking for me on top of that.”

Joe groans. “You can’t just say things like that to her, baby. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Baby?” Jess squeaks.

Nicky points at Joe. “You did that one to yourself.”

Jess laughs, and it sounds exactly like Joe’s laugh. “Hey Nicky, pick up the phone, and take me off speaker.”

“No!” Joe starts reaching for the phone, but Nicky’s faster. “Traitor,” he hisses.

Nicky grins and flicks the speaker off.

“Is it just us?” she asks, entirely serious.

“Yes.”

“Good, now go in another room; he’s got ears like a bat when he thinks I’m talking about him.”

When Nicky is in the living room, standing at the window overlooking the street, he says, “Okay, done.”

“We’re all grown-ups, right Nicky? Even though Joe and I may bicker like we’re still kids.”

Nicky tries not to read anything into her serious tone. “Yes.”

“My brother is kind, generous, and compassionate. His heart is bigger than anyone else I know. He’s protective of people he loves, but he’s not so great about protecting himself. Sometimes he needs help with that, even if he won’t admit it.”

“I see,” Nicky says. It’s beginning to dawn on him where this is going; it’s ramping up like a typical shovel speech.

“I tell you that because I want you to know where I’m coming from when I say this: He’s in love with you. If you don’t think you’ll be able to return that feeling, please do him the kindness of ending things sooner rather than later. I don’t think he’d fall for someone who would be cruel enough to string him along, but I would be a shit sister if I didn’t say something.”

Oh. So, not a shovel speech, something altogether more significant. “I understand.” 

“Okay, thank you for indulging me. I’ve enjoyed hearing about you from him. I hope we get a chance to meet you and get to know you in person.”

Nicky's more than a little shell-shocked, and his politeness is working on autopilot. “I do, too.”

“Enjoy your dinner; he’s an incredible cook. Tell him it’s a one-to-one ratio. Bye, Nicky.”

“Goodbye, Jess.”

He stands in front of the window for a second, just to compose himself. If what Jess said is accurate, and who knows if it is, it’s not Nicky’s place to force this. He needs to go back in there in the same mood he left. Deep breath. In his kitchen, the most beautiful man in the world is making Nicky dinner. Right now, that’s all that matters.

Joe wouldn’t say he’s worrying the entire time Nicky is on the phone with Jess. He’s just fatalistically curious. As nosy as she can be, his sister wouldn’t deliberately do anything to sabotage his relationship. Besides, Nicky has a sister of his own; he knows how they can be. The likelihood that the call will do serious damage to the way Nicky feels about him is vanishingly small.

Still, none of that means she isn’t saying something horribly embarrassing that Joe’s going to have to explain later. They’re moving past the point of curating themselves around each other, but that doesn’t mean he wants his sisters backing up a dump truck full of childhood stories into Nicky’s living room on what is essentially their third date. 

“Do you need help?” Nicky says as he returns to the kitchen.

Well, he doesn’t _sound_ like someone who now knows that somewhere in the world is a recording of Joe in his sister’s school uniform singing, “Spice Up Your Life,” so that’s something.

“Not yet. Did she ask about the sushi story?”

“No. She just wanted to tell me how amazing you are. She loves you very much.” 

“Did she—“

“She said one-to-one.” Nicky kisses him. 

Joe tells him to have a seat. “I promise I’ll tell you if there’s something you can do to help.” Nicky squirms a little on his stool, and Joe wonders if it’s the inactivity that’s bothering him or the fact that he has to be inactive while Joe does things for him. Given the amount of time he’s seen Nicky sit still with a book, Joe’s guessing it’s the latter.

The whole reason for wanting to do nice things for Nicky is to make him feel good, but Joe’s starting to catch on that this might be a process rather than an event. Right now, Nicky’s not relaxing, which is the opposite of what Joe intended. After a few minutes of watching Nicky almost reach for things, Joe passes him a carton of eggs and a bowl. “Please crack eight of these into that bowl.”

Nicky’s shoulders visibly relax, and Joe makes a mental note. Some people are never okay sitting back and letting someone else do all the work, which is okay. This is another part of it being _their_ relationship rather than anyone else’s. If this is what makes Nicky feel relaxed and content right now, Joe can work with that.

“This seems like a lot of work for dinner,” Nicky says.

“It does seem that way until the first time you have homemade tortillas; after that, it never seems like a lot of work again.” Joe has cut the fat into the dry ingredients and is adding the water as he speaks. When the dough is resting, he pulls out a cutting board and starts slicing potatoes. “Here,” he says, handing Nicky a whisk. “Mix those eggs up a bit.”

They work in companionable silence for a minute or two before Nicky says, “How much shit is Jess going to give you for the ‘baby’ thing?”

Joe grins. “The usual amount. Really though, if it weren’t for that, she’d have found something else to give me shit about. It’s almost a relief to have it be something easy for her like that, makes her less likely to dig for something else.” He scrapes the potatoes into a skillet of hot oil, twisting out of the way as a few pops of oil hit him in the chest. “Shit! You’d think I’d have learned by now.”

“Not usually a topless cook?”

“Don’t often have someone to show off for.” Joe winks and watches Nicky’s smile go soft and sweet. There is almost nothing Joe wouldn’t do to see that smile. He swipes the oil off his skin with a towel and salts the potatoes, stirring them a little. “I should have asked earlier. Does it bother you?” When Nicky looks confused, Joe says, “The ‘baby’ thing.”

He can see Nicky swallow, but he doesn’t look upset. “No,” he says, his voice a little husky. Joe has to force himself to focus because the only thing worse than cooking shirtless around hot oil is trying to do it with an erection. “I like it,” Nicky adds, and Joe’s grin is blinding. 

“Good.” It’s Joe’s turn to swallow. He can hear Nicky’s voice from earlier. _’It’s been more than that for me for a while,’_ Nicky had said when Joe said their relationship was about more than sex. Joe can feel the lump in his throat, but he doesn’t back down. Every time he’s been brave enough to put his feelings in the open, it’s turned out for the best. Besides, if Nicky isn’t worth his courage, nothing is. “About the other thing I said, the one you won’t ask about—”

Something flits across Nicky’s face, and Joe is nearly certain Nicky remembers the same moment. He smiles, “Which thing?” 

Fine, if Nicky wants him to say it out loud, if Nicky needs to hear it again, Joe will say it as loud and as often as Nicky wants. “I said you were the man of my dreams, and I meant it.”

Nicky stands on the bottom rung of the stool, bending over the counter far enough to kiss Joe. He runs his finger down the side of Joe’s neck. “How did you go from catapulting hot sauce onto your shirt to this?”

There’s an answer to that, of course. It’s not a revelation from out of the blue, it’s not something he’s known for days and not said; it’s just there, now, in his heart. For a long moment, Joe stares at him. 

“Can I tell you something?” he asks, pushing some potatoes from one side of the pan to another.

“You can tell me anything.”

“Before you got home, a part of me worried it wouldn’t be as good as I remembered.” Joe laughs, barely a huff. “I think I underestimated how much I missed you.”

Nicky shrugs one shoulder. “I worried about the same thing.” Fuck, how is Nicky’s smile always so warm and comforting?

Joe scrapes the potatoes onto a plate and turns the burner off. “I also worried— Talking wasn’t as easy before you left as it was when we were on FaceTime or phone calls. I wondered if we’d be able to keep that.” He comes around the counter to stand in front of Nicky. 

“Even if it hadn’t been quite as easy, we’d have found a way to make it work; we’d have gotten back there.” Nicky ducks his head and scrubs at the back of his neck with his palm. “I didn’t worry about coming home, but I worried about being gone. I worried we wouldn’t have anything to talk about.”

“It’s shocking how wrong we both were.” Joe steps into the space between Nicky’s knees, and Nicky pulls him close, as though he needs to be touching Joe right now. His broad hands are so warm against Joe’s back.

Nicky laughs. “It is. Was there anything else?” 

Joe shakes his head. “It was all these little worries, but they all boiled down to the same thing. I worried when you came back, I’d feel differently about you.” With Nicky sitting on the stool, Joe is a few inches taller. When he leans back, he’s looking down at Nicky.

“Do you?” Nicky’s eyes are enormous, perfectly clear, and Joe wonders if they can see into his heart.

He sweeps a hank of hair off Nicky’s forehead. They’re being themselves, not first date versions of themselves. They’re not holding things back, and as much as that means not hiding things they’ve known for a while, it also means not letting things they’ve learned become things they hide. Joe takes a deep breath, feeling Nicky’s arms around him. 

“Yeah,” Joe says, and Nicky closes his eyes. With one hand, Joe cups Nicky’s chin and tilts his face up. He sweeps a thumb over one high cheekbone. “When you left, I didn’t love you. Now I do.” 

Until the day he dies, Nicky will be grateful that what Joe does next is immediately kiss him. It’s not that he would have said something wrong; it’s that he doesn’t have any words at all.

When Joe pulls back, Nicky drops his forehead to Joe’s chest. He can feel Joe’s hand on the back of his neck as his breathing slows again. “Oh, my love. How am I so lucky?” He’ll say it back the right way. Why wouldn’t he when it’s the truth? Right now, though, he wants to kiss Joe right here, over his heart, and feel Joe’s fingers stroking his hair. 

Joe’s hand is under his chin again, tilting his face up. He kisses Nicky like he’s said everything in his heart, and the reassuring thing is that it’s the same way he kissed Nicky an hour ago. He doesn’t seem to be expecting anything or pushing Nicky, which is sweet and lovely, but he needn’t bother. Joe pulls away, turning to go back to the other side of the counter and continue cooking. As he steps out of Nicky’s arms, Nicky catches his wrist. It’s the same kind of move Nicky made the first night they were in this house together, but today Joe isn’t going anywhere.

He tugs, and Joe steps toward him again. Nicky doesn’t let go of Joe’s wrist, but he lifts his other hand to brush his knuckles across Joe’s jaw. He knows with a certainty that there is nothing he wouldn’t do to keep this perfect man safe and happy. Nicky smiles. “I’m so in love with you.”

Closing his eyes, Joe leans his head into Nicky’s touch and sighs. They kiss for a few minutes, wordless and mostly gentle. They’re not claiming, no clash of teeth and lips; instead, they’re the kisses of two people being sure of each other. When Joe pulls away again, Nicky squeezes his fingers but lets him go.

Watching Joe cook is intensely sexy, and it still does strange things to his heart to know that Joe is taking care of him like this. With breakfast, it was a fait accompli; the coffee and bagels were made before Joe came back to bed, but just sitting as he watches Joe prepare dinner for him is too much for Nicky. Thankfully, Joe seems to have an endless supply of little things he can do to help. Once he finishes whisking the eggs, Nicky is set to chopping corn tortillas. 

Once again, it’s a miracle that he makes it through without losing a finger. This time, it’s because Joe is across the counter, his shoulders and arms on full display, wielding a rolling pin. There’s been a high-pitched whistling noise in the back of Nicky’s brain from the moment Joe started rolling out the first piece of dough. He’s been paying attention, and he’s noticed that the minute Joe’s forearms flex, the whistling gets louder. Watching Joe’s fingers tug the edges of the dough out makes the whistling get higher-pitched. If his shoulders flex, both the pitch and volume go up. It’s like a symphony of panicked attraction in Nicky’s head. 

The fact that Joe will be naked in his bed later, the fact that Joe _loves him_ doesn’t do a single thing to mitigate the effects of his physical presence. Plus, did Nicky notice that he’s shirtless? Because he is, he has been for hours, but it’s still causing fuses to blow in Nicky’s brain, and he’s not sure when that will end.

Who knows how long Joe’s been saying his name by the time Nicky finally looks up from watching Joe’s hands. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said can you put these on a plate?” 

“Of course.”

He has a plate in hand, is reaching up to close the cabinet, when he hears Joe’s voice say, “Your ass is criminal in those pants, love.” The plate hits the counter then bounces to the floor where it spins for a second before landing face-down. Nicky’s got the plate back in hand, is putting it in the sink, when he hears the quiet sound of Joe trying to pretend he’s not snickering. 

Oh. So that’s how it is. Two grown men are about to play a game of “Gotcha” with their feeling words. 

“This isn’t a meal that uses a lot of fancy serving utensils. Just take what you want, and I’ll meet you at the table.” He kisses Nicky on the shoulder, and Nicky _almost_ feels a little bad about what he’s about to do. Not bad enough to stop him from doing it, but it’s nice to know his conscience is still there. 

Joe is passing the door to the living room, dinner in hand, when Nicky calls out, “I love you.” He watches Joe turn suddenly then smack into the doorframe. Nicky might have sat resting on his laurels as the winner of this round, except Joe’s dropped to the floor, swearing. Possibly in Hungarian again. 

Rounding the corner of the counter, Nicky can see that Joe hit the table where Nicky dumps his keys, his mail, and, yesterday, the enormous pile of reports he’ll need to review and mark up in the wake of the Manchester trip. The stack of papers didn’t survive the impact and the biggest of them seems to have landed on Joe’s foot.

“Are you alright?” Nicky’s crouched in front of Joe before he can blink, checking the foot, looking for bruising or signs of a break. 

“I’m fine. Nicky! I’m _fine_. I bent to try catching it and fell on my ass. What the hell is this brick?” He picks up the offending bundle of papers.

“Reports, for work,” Nicky says, slightly distracted as he checks Joe for signs of injury. 

“Why,” Joe says as he looks at the pages, at the bright glossy photos across the cover, “do you have the UNCHR Global Report just hanging around in your kitchen?” He passes it to Nicky as he stacks the rest of them back on the table.

This was perhaps not the ideal way to be breaking this information to Joe. Josh had _not_ been okay with finding out what Nicky did, and Nicky doesn’t want a replay of that. Still, if saying ‘I love you’ on the third date hadn’t driven him from the house, maybe this would be fine. Please, let it be fine.

“Uh.” Nicky stands, reaching out his hands and pulling Joe up. “It’s waiting to be taken up to my desk.”

Joe is staring at him. “I have so many questions.” 

“I’ll tell you over dinner? I promise this one is a better payoff than the sushi story.”

Hooking a hand around Nicky’s neck, Joe pulls him close for a kiss. “Baby, my sweet Nicky, I get to hear you tell me you love me. That’s the payoff to the sushi story, and I doubt you’re going to beat it.”

Nicky wonders if it’s a bad sign that even the way Joe pats his chest makes him happy.

They’re both hungrier than they’d thought, so the first few minutes are just easy silence as they eat. “Okay,” Joe says, pushing his plate away from himself. “First question: Why does that report need to get to your desk?”

“I have to have the partnership sections reviewed for changes from previous policy.”

“I realize I’ve been trying to draw conclusions, but it seems I’ve been paying attention to entirely the wrong clues, so I’m going to just ask. Nicky, what do you and Andy do?”

Nicky laces his fingers with Joe’s. “We help keep people safe.” He runs his thumb over Joe’s knuckles. "When I was a kid, my mother worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we moved all the time. I was never in a school for more than a couple of years. It was hard, sometimes, always being the new kid in the class, but I loved feeling like an explorer, moving to new places all the time.”

“You must have some incredible stories.”

He can see those years, like a flip-book, fluttering through his memory. “I do, and a few special things from our postings. Things I got, or my mother got. But the stories are my favorite mementos. The ones that are the happiest to remember are where stories and things are intertwined, like the time my mother bought me some swords I wanted, but then found me a teacher so I could learn how to use them.”

A furrow appears between Joe’s eyebrows. “The ones in the living room? I thought those were for decoration.”

“They’re _also_ for decoration. Why would you have a sword in your house that you couldn’t use?”

“My love, you just became more dangerous, terrifying, and attractive all at once.”

“That’s a story for another time, and my mother will want to be there so she can show you pictures.”

“Again, the Scheherazade.”

Taking Joe’s hand, Nicky kisses the inside of his wrist, then watches his arms prickle with gooseflesh as Nicky drags his teeth over the heel of Joe’s hand.

When he speaks again, most of the playfulness is gone. He thinks he’s going to explain this one way, the fast and simple way, but what comes out is very different. “The first time I lived in one place for more than three years, it was for university in New York. Then again for graduate school. Even then, moving someplace new and settling down was an adventure.” He drifts into quiet for a second and feels Joe squeeze his hand, bringing him back to the moment. “That changed when I was in law school—” 

Joe’s eyes go wide. “Even if I’d been trying to guess; I never would have guessed lawyer.”

“I don’t practice, not like you’re thinking, you’ll see. When I was in law school, Andy is who taught me what trying to move someplace new and settle down looked like for most of the rest of the world.”

He pulls Joe’s plate over, picking at the leftovers. “I’ll get more,” Joe says. “You keep talking.”

“She ran the immigration law clinic where I interned. Andy was in there every day, relentless, and for some reason she liked me. Maybe because I didn’t complain about the paperwork, or the repetition. It was the same for me every time, but it was always new, and usually frightening for the client. It took so little to be patient and make sure they felt like they knew what happened next. ‘Other people treat them like appointments, Nicky. You listen. You treat them like people.’ It meant a lot to me for her to say that.”

Joe slides another plate of food in front of him, and Nicky pulls it closer. He picks a cube of potato out of the eggs and eats it. 

“In that place, some days, you felt like Superman. You were the hero. Andy used to have a whistle on her desk she’d blow when one of us said something like that. She called it our White Savior Alarm. Still, if you’re the one who makes the call that gets someone’s daughter her visa, finally? It was a lot of work, but I always knew it was harder for them. And it felt so good to see that I’d helped.” He tears off a piece of tortilla. “This isn’t what you asked about—“

Joe comes around the table to sit next to Nicky. The way he sprawls in his chair, his leg is pressed against Nicky’s, and that warmth seeps into the rest of his body. “Is that what you do now?”

Nicky shakes his head. “It was only an internship. It still felt like I was abandoning them when I left. Andy told me—I didn’t believe her when she said it the first time—she said if I wanted a job after I graduated, I should call her. I didn’t though, not right away. When I left grad school, I thought I could work inside the system. For a year, I clerked at the State Department.” He drags his hand over his face. “It was awful. No connection to the people we were supposed to be helping, and no one felt. No one felt it. For them, it seemed to be just a job, and I’m not someone who wants ‘just a job.' One day, I left the building for lunch, and I called Andy.”

“So, you went to work with her?” Joe asks, poking Nicky’s plate closer to him.

Nicky takes the tortilla and folds it up around some eggs. Once he’s finished chewing, he says, “She said there was a way we could still do some good, maybe even more good, than being at a desk in the law clinic, and she was right. By then, she’d left the clinic and was working for an NGO here in DC that works with refugees and asylum seekers. It’s as end to end as we can make it. Legal aid in camps, settlement assistance when they get somewhere safe, everything in between.”

“Why is none of this on the website?”

Nicky sighs. “Check it again, we outsourced a redesign and they bombed the launch last week. It was stuck on a template for almost a full day.”

“Well,” Joe says. “That explains it. Which one of those things do you do?”

“Andy runs the advocacy and policy arm. Some of our team does the work on the ground helping petitioners and partnering with refugee-run organizations locally, I’m working on international policy oversight and pushing policy changes. Making the legal process easier, monitoring for places trying to change their laws to make it harder for asylum seekers, trying to guarantee that everyone is legally entitled to basic needs, things like that.”

Joe sits forward in his chair and tugs Nicky’s neck until their foreheads are touching. “Just things like that. Little things. Not a big deal,” he says, deadpan. 

“If it goes right, the work we do changes the lives of thousands of people who very much need it. It’s important, and I’m glad to be doing it, but sometimes we work on something for months or years before we see any progress. Sometimes we work on something that long and nothing happens at all. I can go into the office, work with the best teams in the world, have all the evidence and all the right arguments, do everything right, and still get nowhere. So many places closing borders. It’s hard to think about everyone we could help and think that even our best wasn’t enough.” He rubs his hands over his face. “It would set off Andy’s White Savior Alarm, but some days I wish I were back in the clinic, because at least then I could look at someone and know I’d helped them in a real way when they needed it.”

By now, Joe’s pulled Nicky’s head to his shoulder, and Nicky can smell the warm skin of Joe’s neck, that beard oil, and a little bit of Nicky’s soap from the bath that morning. Fuck, he loves this man so much.

“That’s a lot to have on your mind all day,” Joe says.

Leave it to Joe to cut to the crux of the matter in seconds. 

Nicky looks up, and Joe kisses his head before pressing his palm flat against Nicky’s cheek... “I wish I could take some of the work for you.”

“I don’t,” Nicky says. It’s probably a little too emphatic, a little too fast, if Joe’s startled expression is anything to go by. He claps his hand over Joe’s where it’s resting on his face. “It’s—I can’t think of the right way to say this. You want to be supportive, to help with the… the burden?” Joe’s smile is sad and kind, all at once. “You not being part of this work helps me more than if you were. Because you’re not steeped in that world, you do something for me that only you can.”

Joe strokes his thumb over Nicky’s cheek. “What’s that?”

How can he put this into words?

“You don’t need me for anything.” The startled frown on Joe’s face tells Nicky this wasn’t quite the right way to phrase it. “No, I mean—“ he cups Joe’s face. “It’s not that you don’t need me; It’s that you don’t need me _for_ anything, not for the people I know, or the things I can do. You’re with me because you love me. Because you want to be. You don’t need anything from me, you just need me.” 

Nicky sits back in his chair, picking up Joe’s hand.

"For almost everyone else in my life, I’m a tool or a resource. I’m an obstacle or an ally. For some, I’m just a set of credentials.” He leans close and kisses Joe’s eyebrow. “What you can do, the thing _only_ you can do is know me as just your Nicky, who loves you very much. Because aside from my family, you’re the only person who sees me that way first. On the bad days, if I can know that’s who you see? I can turn everything else off, and be just Nicky. You’re… a safe place to land. And if I can be that for you? I want to be that for you, too.”

Joe sits back in his chair, his hand sliding away from Nicky’s face. He has a question that he can’t ever ask Nicky, wouldn’t dare ask Andy, but it will probably be screaming in the back of Joe’s head for years. He knows from hearing Nicky talk that his colleagues are good, dedicated, compassionate people. People who probably could be making three times as much money at a private firm, but they've chosen this work. Nicky probably talks to them, goes to them for help, but Joe can feel in his bones that Nicky would never go to them for _support_.

He’d know in his heart what they were already dealing with, and he’d never add to that for them. So, that’s the question: While Nicky’s been so diligent, so careful, and skilled at protecting and taking care of others, who’s been protecting and taking care of Nicky? Andy, he’s sure, when they’re in the office or at work. Not at home, though.

Fucking Josh never did, that much is obvious just from the little Joe knows about him. He thinks back to the way Nicky reacted to the idea of having to sit idly by while Joe cooked him dinner, and he knows, like he knows his own name, that not a single one of Nicky’s partners has ever been as good to him as he was to them. 

That ends now. 

“Whatever you need, Nicky. Whatever I can do.”

Just then, it seems, what Nicky needs is to kiss Joe like he’s driving the memory of every other kiss from his head. 

While they’re doing the dishes and cleaning up, they talk about how to spend the rest of the evening. 

“Thanks for letting me talk about that, earlier.”

“Nicky, we’re in a relationship. This is what people do for each other.”

“Not always.”

Joe stops, dish halfway to the sink, and stares at Nicky. “Fucking Josh?”

“Fucking Josh hated it when I talked about work. He couldn’t understand why I worked a job where I _could_ be a high-profile attorney, but I’d rather just help people. Talking would always turn into him nagging me.”

His previous conclusion confirmed, Joe spends a few delightful seconds thinking about which vehicle he’d most enjoy using to run over Josh. Riding lawnmower, he decides. A really big one, like the golf course kind.

Stepping into Nicky’s space, Joe kisses him. “I just need you.” Nicky smiles and kisses him back. “And for you to rinse the toothpaste out of the sink. That’s gross, Nicky.”

Watching the smile spread across Nicky’s face, hearing that laugh, _this_ is what he can do for Nicky. 

“I’m sure we’ll talk about that later.”

Joe grins at him. “You were right; it’s a better story than the sushi one. Still not a better payoff, though.”

They have a few more quiet minutes before Joe asks, “What would you do if I weren’t here?” 

“I’d probably sit and read. I do so much reading for work, sometimes I never want to look at another printed word again. But a night like this where there's nothing looming? That's what I like best.”

“In that big chair upstairs?”

“Usually.”

“When I saw it last night, I wondered if it was the most comfortable place in the house.”

Nicky grins. “It was, for the longest time. Now it’s the sofa, but only if you’re on it with me.”

He says it with such a matter-of-fact tone, but it stops Joe in his tracks. “Baby,” he says before wrapping his arms around Nicky. The warm pressure of Nicky’s hands on his back is perfect. 

Nicky says something that’s muffled by Joe’s neck, but Joe’s pretty sure it's, “I love you.”

“So,” Joe says, still holding Nicky close, “the ideal situation is the chair, but with me in it, too?” 

Laughing, Nicky raises his head to kiss Joe again. “Sure, absolutely.” 

Perfect. Joe knows exactly how they’re spending the rest of the evening. 

He spends a second or two staring at the controls for Nicky’s dishwasher. “Does it have a launch code or something?”

Nicky smiles at him, shaking his head as if Joe will be the death of him. “I’ll get it.”

“I’ll be upstairs then,” Joe says. Before Nicky can say anything else, Joe is taking the steps two at a time. He grabs a pillow from the bed and tucks it along the side of the chair that can’t be seen from the door, then takes the throw draped over the back of the chair and arranges it so it’s covering the seat.

When Nicky walks in, Joe’s blowing out the match he’s used to light the three wicks of the enormous candle on the dresser. 

“I wasn’t initially sure if this was a light source or a blunt weapon.”

“Depends on the night, I suppose. It was a gift from my sister.”

“That was nice of her.”

“It sounds that way, doesn’t it?”

(“Call it a congratulations present for getting rid of Fucking Josh,” Anna had said. “Besides, if you’re going to try pulling off this,” she’d waved in a way that seemed to encompass all of Nicky, including the slightly tailored jeans he’d started wearing, “Farmer’s Market chic thing you’ve got going on here, you need a candle that smells like a hot single dad trying to get laid after the PTA meeting.”

“Why are you like this?”

“Luck.”)

There’s a fair amount of light coming in from the street as well, just the ambient glow of the city around them. Joe’s drawn the curtains covering the bottom half of the windows, knowing that they'll want the privacy.

“Nicky?” Joe crosses the room and meets Nicky’s eyes straight on. “There are countless ways to get you where I want you right now, but only one that doesn’t involve misdirection or suggestion in some way. It’s important,” he says, fingering the hem of Nicky’s t-shirt, “that tonight you know that nothing I do or say is anything but the absolute truth. So,” he points to the chair, “have a seat. Please.”

Nicky settles himself in the big blue chair by the window. “Where are you sitting?” Joe can see that the chair is wide enough that Nicky’s body doesn’t touch the sides. Perfect.

He brushes Nicky’s hair from his forehead as he puts one knee on either side of Nicky’s hips and settles himself onto Nicky’s lap. 

“I’m sitting right here.”

“Hi,” Nicky says.

“Hello.” Joe takes Nicky’s head in his hands, fingers laced together in the back, his thumbs in the hollows behind Nicky’s jaw. It’s a simple kiss, close-mouthed, but Joe keeps eye contact with Nicky until the instant their lips touch, at which point he sighs like someone coming home at the end of a war. When Nicky tries for more, Joe digs his thumbs in, needing this moment to be a statement, not a lead-in. He can feel as Nicky tries to pull away, and Joe lets him go. Nicky doesn’t go far, just enough to rest their foreheads together.

“When Andy said that you listen to people, do you know what she meant?”

“Why are we talking about my boss right—“

“Tell me, please.”

“She means that I notice things. I pay attention.”

“And you use that to help people, to make sure their needs are met, maybe make sure they’re cared for.”

“Sure, yes,” Nicky says as if he’s wondering what other option there is, who would know a way to help and not do it? All this does is cement Joe’s plan. He tilts Nicky’s head until they’re eye to eye.

“I listen to _you_ , Nicky. I know what you do for people, how you care for them. How you care for me.”

Nicky ducks forward and sucks Joe’s lower lip into his mouth. The kiss is loud, Joe moaning into Nicky’s mouth; Nicky groans as he grips Joe’s waist. Pulling against that grip, Joe rolls his hips into Nicky just for the pleasure of watching Nicky suck in a gasp. Joe can feel a twitch against his thigh, and he knows that Nicky’s dick has started to take notice. 

“I see you. This morning, how surprised you were that I made you coffee, got you to bed last night, and let you just sleep. You almost said no when I offered to bring dinner over for yesterday.” He rubs his thumbs behind Nicky’s ears. There’s more he could say, but it’s clear Nicky isn’t sure how to take even this much.

Nicky closes his eyes, tries to turn his head a little. Joe lets him, shifting forward instead to speak into Nicky’s ear. “I know, baby. It’s hard, especially for a man like you who is so good at the other side of this. It makes you happy to take care of people, that’s obvious, and I imagine it was easy for the men you’ve been with to see how much you love it and just let you. It’s not that some didn’t think you deserved the same in return, it’s just that I’m betting not a fucking one of them ever gave it to you.” He kisses the spot behind Nicky’s ear. "Not like they should have. Not like you’re worth.” Joe bites Nicky’s neck just under his jaw. Not hard, just enough to keep his attention. "That’s a fucking crime, Nicky.”

He can feel every place Nicky’s fingers are digging in hard enough to leave a bruise. Joe rolls his hips again, and Nicky moans. Sliding his hands under Nicky’s shirt, Joe drags it up his arms and throws it across the room. “Look at you,” he says, curling his hips into Nicky again, feeling the heat against his ass where Nicky’s cock is getting hard. “The man I love is beautiful in every way, and I am so lucky.” The paths Joe’s fingernails take down Nicky’s chest are marked by trails of skin scratched just hard enough to make them pink up.

“Joe.” Nickys’ voice is ragged already as he sweeps his hands up Joe’s chest. 

Waiting until Nicky’s hands are almost to his shoulders, Joe wraps a hand around each wrist and moves them to the arms of the chair, pinning them in place. Dragging his nose against Nicky’s, Joe kisses him so softly. “I love you,” he says just before he licks Nicky’s mouth open and grinds down into Nicky’s lap. There’s a tiny wailing sound as Nicky sucks at Joe’s lips, his tongue. Joe circles his hips again, moaning into the kiss. Tonight, he’s going to give Nicky every kiss he’s been holding onto for a week. “Does that feel good?” Joe asks.

Nicky’s eyes are closed, his hair hanging over his eyebrows. “Yes,” he says, nodding. “It feels so good. Joe, you’re killing me right now, please let me touch you.”

“Do you want to make me feel good, or do you just want to feel my skin under your hand?”

“I—“ Nicky frowns, looking up at Joe. “What?”

“Look at your eyes, I forgot what I was going to say for a second.” Joe kisses Nicky, biting on his bottom lip. When he pulls back, Nicky’s looking up at him as if he’s never seen anything like Joe. This, right here, is what he wants to give Nicky in return. “Baby, what are you thinking when you look at me like that?”

“I love you.”

Joe can’t help how soft his smile is. “I feel that.” He grinds himself along the length of Nicky’s cock. “When you look at me, I feel loved. I feel adored. It’s in your eyes when you look at me, in the way you touch me. I feel how much you love me in the way you hold me, how you washed me clean this morning, and every time you kiss me. I feel it, and I love you, too. No one’s ever made me feel the way you do, Nicky.”

Nicky surges forward, kissing Joe again, teasing Joe’s mouth open. 

“I’m not letting you out of this chair until you let me make you feel as loved and cared for as you make me feel.” That’s dirty pool, and Joe knows it. If he’d just said that he wasn’t letting Nicky up until he felt the way Joe does, they could be out of this chair in minutes. To say that the object is for Nicky to sit there and let Joe give him this is another thing entirely. “You think I didn’t notice this morning, how hard you got from seeing the way I loved everything you gave me? You think you’re the only one? Watching you get turned on from me being good to you, going hoarse from the pleasure I give you, from the way I take care of you, is going to make me come so hard, Nicky.”

Joe’s lips aren’t even touching Nicky’s yet when Nicky’s mouth drops open, his chin lifting to connect the kiss. Never, in any of his thirty-odd years, has Joe ever been kissed like this. Not even other kisses from Nicky. When Nicky’s tongue licks into Joe’s mouth, a shudder goes down his spine. He can’t seem to help how hard he’s rolling his body against Nicky’s, canting his hips back so he can feel the shape of Nicky’s cock against his. The heat is almost too much, even through their pants. 

By the time they come up for air, Joe has to uncurl his toes. “Feel good?” he asks. 

“Yes, fuck! Love, Joe, please.” His wrists flex again. “Please!” 

One last small kiss. “Okay, baby, I hear you. I’ll make you a deal,” he says, kissing the underside of Nicky’s jaw. “I’m going to make you feel good now—“

“You already—“

“Shhh. Do you know how fucking hot it makes me hearing you like this? Someday, I’m going to see if I can come just from listening to you fall apart for me,” Joe says, and he can feel the rumble of Nicky’s growl. “If you make any more noises like that, someday might be tonight, my heart.”

Nicky’s hips jerk.

“Like that, did you?” Joe’s so fucking weak for how responsive Nicky is to that suggestion. He’s going to make damn sure it’s clear that Nicky’s not the only one in this relationship who gets off on being good to the man he loves. “My heart,” he says again, and Nicky’s hips jerk once more. “My love.” Nicky’s head drops back, exposing the front of his throat for Joe to kiss. “Man of my dreams. My sweet Nico.” The muscle at the side of Nicky’s jaw is clenched so tight Joe can see it in his temple, and Nicky’s hips haven’t stopped rolling against Joe. “Baby,” Joe says into the shell of Nicky’s ear. For a second, Joe is worried that Nicky's managed to get enough friction to come because his body is rigid, and he’s moaning so loud it’s almost a cry. “Baby, I love you.”

“God, FUCK. Joe!” 

“I’m going to make you feel good now, and I’ll let your hands go as long as you keep them up here.”

“Up—What?”

Joe moves his hands to the arms of the chair and pushes back, sliding to the ground, pulling Nicky’s pajama pants with him as he goes. He has to tug to get them out from under Nicky’s ass, but it does give him a chance to watch Nicky’s thighs flex, and that’s a sight to behold. He wasn’t lying; the man he loves is so beautiful. The pants out of the way, Joe reaches for the pillow he’d stashed and pulls his pants off before tucking the pillow under his knees.

With a wink tossed Nicky’s way, Joe hooks him around the backs of his knees and pulls until Nicky’s hips are closer to the edge of the chair. This way, he’ll have better access, more room to play. He pushes Nicky’s knees wide and looks up. Nicky’s staring at him, and there’s something almost frightened in his eyes. His elbows are propped on the chair arms, and his hands are clenched into fists up by his shoulders. 

“It’s not easy, I know, baby.” Joe kisses the inside of Nicky’s right knee. “You deserve as much care as you give, and it’s going to make me so fucking happy to give it to you. I know you don’t believe me, and you don’t have to, not yet. Just believe that _I_ believe it’s true. That this is something I _want_ to do for you.” He kisses higher on Nicky’s right thigh. 

Nicky looks at him, the anxiety draining from his face, leaving only a mixture of confusion and arousal, as if he’s not sure why Joe needs to do this, but his body isn’t arguing. 

“This, Nicky.” Joe grips Nicky’s thighs and licks a sloppy, wet stripe from the back of Nicky’s balls clear up to the tip of his cock. “This is a cock that is long overdue for worship.” Ignoring Nicky’s strangled groan, Joe buries his face in the crease of Nicky’s thigh and just inhales the smell of warm, aroused Nicky. “Fuck, you smell so good.” 

He could be neater about the way he kisses Nicky’s cock, could probably drool less, but what would be the fucking point? 

By the time Joe sucks a messy kiss into the side of the head, his spit is running down the length of Nicky’s cock, pooling in the curls at the base. When he looks up, he can see Nicky’s hands fisted in his own hair, a desperate disbelief on his face. This is far from the first blowjob Nicky’s gotten, he knows that, but it feels like this might be the first time someone’s put this level of devotion into it. Joe is equal parts thrilled that he’s the one who gets to do it first, and incandescently livid at every man who ever shared Nicky’s bed without treating him the way he deserves.

Joe ducks his head lower and licks Nicky’s balls, rolling one across his tongue and into his mouth. He stops for a second, looking up. There’s one last piece of business to get out of the way.

“Nicky, love, look at me.” Nicky shifts his gaze to meet Joe's eyes. “There you are. Oh, Nico, your eyes are so incredible.” He rubs his thumb against Nicky’s thighs. "Not everyone likes the same thing, right?” Nicky nods. “And there’s no reason we would know everything each other likes or doesn’t like right away, yes?”

“Yes.”

“What I like when I’m doing this might not be what you like, and I need you to tell me if that happens.” Joe watches Nickys’ brows draw together. Of course, he sees it now. “If you don’t want to say it out loud, just tap the arm of the chair. I won’t stop, I’ll just back off a bit. If I do something you want me to stop immediately, and you don’t want to say it out loud, just tap your foot, okay?”

“I can do that.”

“Perfect, thank you. Nicky?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t grit your teeth and suffer through something because you don’t want to hurt my feelings, okay?” He squeezes Nicky’s knees. Time for some more dirty pool. “If I can’t trust that you’ll tell me something you don’t like after I’ve specifically asked? That tells me you’ll disregard what I ask for, what you agreed to do, if you think you know better than me what I need or want. How can I trust someone like that, when our positions are reversed, to stop when I ask?”

“I understand,” Nicky says, his voice perfectly clear. He understands how important this agreement is.

“Now,” Joe says, dragging his thumbnails up the sensitive, soft skin inside Nicky’s thighs, “where was I?”

He winks at Nicky again before bending his head to swallow Nicky’s cock nearly to the base. He’s been so good, and Joe wants to reward him. Laying the flat of his tongue against the shaft, Joe pulls back and sucks his way off the tip, pausing to lick it clean of everything it’s been leaking since Joe got to his knees.

“Nicky.” The ache in Joe’s voice is audible. “You taste so good, baby.” 

The rules, the negotiations, and preliminaries are out of the way now; Joe takes a deep breath and sets himself to the task at hand with the enthusiasm of a true devotee. With his lips spit-slick, he sucks one of Nicky’s balls into his mouth again, licking at it, feeling it roll against his tongue. God, Joe fucking loves this. He can’t resist sucking as he pulls his mouth back, feeling it fill his mouth. Nicky hisses, just for a second, and Joe can hear one of his hands tap the arm of the chair. 

“Oh Nicky, you make me so happy,” he says, making a note to lighten up on the suction on the other side. For the moment, though, what Joe wants is to taste every inch he can reach. Starting at the crease of Nicky’s thigh, Joe drags his sloppy wet tongue across Nicky’s balls from one side to the other, then up along the underside of Nicky’s cock. 

It starts as a groan at Joe’s first lick, but by the time Joe starts up the shaft, Nicky is moaning, full-throated, and heaping filthy praise on Joe’s talents. 

“Fuck, oh god, Joe! Yes, please, oh please, that feels so good. Your mouth, your perfect fucking mouth. Fuck, don’t stop, please.”

Joe sits back on his heels a bit but doesn’t let the head of Nicky’s cock slip from his mouth. He’s inviting Nicky’s gaze, begging for it, truth be told. When he sees Nicky open his eyes and look down, Joe pulls off, nosing at the base and looking up so that Nicky can see him drag his cheek up the side of the shaft. Joe’s eyes droop, and his cock throbs. It feels like every nerve on Joe’s body is on fire just from having Nicky watch him. 

He hums, turning his head to lick at the tip and suck it back into his mouth. 

“Shit, look at you, Joe. You love that, don’t you? Love having your mouth full of me?”

Joe groans, feels his toes curl. “I do, baby. I fucking do,” he says before sliding his mouth down the side of that gorgeous, weeping cock.

“You liked hearing that, too, didn’t you?”

Damn. This was always going to be an issue with Nicky. He’s attentive, even drunk on endorphins like he is now, he’s always watching. It’s not his fault that he’s managed to find some way to give back. Then again, listening to the gorgeous man he’s in love with praise him isn’t the end of the world, Joe thinks. He smiles, which isn’t easy to do with his mouth full like this, and nods.

“You look so good with your mouth wrapped around my cock, love. Feels amazing, and I love watching you. Thank you for giving me this. You’re so good to me.”

Now who’s playing dirty pool? Nicky’s trying to reward Joe, trying to praise him, and no mention of Joe taking care of Nicky will distract from that. He'd laugh if he weren’t worried about choking. Joe drops his mouth open, holding his tongue firm against the head as he slides back down, mouth still loose. Nicky’s cock is slick with spit, Joe’s practically drooling on him, and it’s fucking perfect.

“You’d stay there all day, wouldn’t you?” Nicky asks, and Joe’s cock jerks hard, thumping back down, hard and heavy against his thigh. He would, is the thing. Joe would spend all day like this, just to feel Nicky in his mouth, to give Nicky as much as he wanted to take. When Nicky speaks again, his voice is ragged, nearly hoarse. “Someday, Joe. We’re going to spend a Sunday like this.”

Joe pulls off fast, feeling Nicky’s wet cock hit the side of his face as it throbs. He can’t resist pressing his hand to himself, cupping his balls, and grinding against his palm, just once, as he says, “Fuck! Fuck, Nicky, baby, you can’t just say shit like that.” 

“Can’t I?” says Nicky, rolling his hips, so the weeping head of his cock drags along Joe’s face.

Unable to resist, Joe sucks and licks until he has as much of Nicky’s taste on his tongue as he can get. Because he knows Nicky’s watching, the sounds he makes are as obscene as he can make them.

“Don’t get me wrong, love, I would love to spend a few hours with you, having some kind of filthy-mouthed arms race. Not tonight, though.”

“Not tonight,” Nicky says, his voice wrecked from groaning. Joe fucks his face down onto Nicky’s cock, taking it what feels like impossibly deep. “Maybe we’ll do that—Oh, god, what the—Joe. Oh shit, Joe, I can feel you swallow around me, oh!” It’s almost a sob, and Joe thinks that's the kind of sound that could make him come just hearing it. He pulls off enough to get some air in, still sucking, still teasing the ridge under the head of Nicky’s cock with the tip of his tongue.

“Joe! Oh god, fuck fuck, Joe! That’s so fucking good, please.” Then, like music to Joe’s ears, Nickys says, “More? Please?” 

Nicky’s asking for more, for anything, just for himself, just because he wants it, and it’s enough to have Joe grinding against his hand again. If more is what Nicky wants, there’s nothing Joe would rather do than to give it to him. 

“You feel so good, Joe, so good. Making me feel so good, sucking me just the way I like, shit, Joe!”

Nicky’s balls start to draw up, and though he’s almost finished down here, this isn’t how Joe wants either of them to come tonight. He pulls off, spends a few more seconds licking and sucking Nicky’s balls, feeling them get loose again. It’s a mess down here, and Joe’s lips will be swollen for a few hours, but it’s a small price to pay. 

One last time, Joe looks up and sees Nicky watching him. He reaches up, takes Nicky’s hand, and pulls it down to rest on the crown of his head. Nicky draws his fingers through Joe’s hair as Joe rests his cheek against Nicky’s flushed, dripping cock. 

“So good to me,” Nicky says.

“All for you.”

Bracing against the seat of the chair, Joe pushes up, shaking the pins and needles from his legs before he climbs back onto Nicky’s lap. Dazed, his hair half-wild from being tugged, Nicky stares at him. One of Nicky’s fingers traces Joe’s lower lip, pressing where it’s most swollen. Joe can feel his pulse there, thumping against Nicky’s touch. Darting forward, Nicky kisses him, sucking that lip between his own, scraping his teeth across where it’s already puffy from dragging against Nicky’s cock. Joe imagines Nicky feels what he’s done to Joe, what Joe’s done to himself in his eagerness to have Nicky in his mouth.

His tongue swipes over Joe’s lip just before he lets go. Joe can’t resist tracing those spots with the tip of his tongue just once. He can feel Nicky’s cock jerk against him as he does. 

“When you fall apart like that? For something I did? For the way I made you feel? You're so beautiful,” Joe says. Nicky doesn’t duck his head away, no matter how much it looks like he wants to. Joe licks his palm, reaches down, and wraps his hand as far as possible around both of their cocks. Nicky hisses and rolls his hips, pushing himself up into Joe’s fist. "Thank you for letting me be good to you.” Joe punctuates it with a kiss.

For a second, Nicky kisses him back, before dropping his forehead to Joe’s chest. 

“Hey,” Joe says. He cups Nicky’s chin with his free hand. “Look at me, baby.” 

Nicky rolls his head back the next time Joe strokes their cocks. His eyes are still closed like he can’t figure out why Joe would want this, would want to look into Nicky’s eyes at this moment. Once again, Joe is furious at everyone who’s shared Nicky’s bed, but not actually cared about him.

“Do you feel that, Nicky? Feel how hard I am next to you? That’s from hearing the sounds you make because of me. I’m so close, Nicky, just from seeing how good I make you feel. Do you know how much I love you?”

“Yes, fuck, Joe,” he gasps as Joe strokes them again. "I know. I do. You love me so much. Make me feel so good.” His eyes are still screwed shut.

“Let me see it, baby. I want to see in your eyes that you know how much I love you, that you know how much I love making you feel good. That’s why I want you to look at me. So I can come while seeing in your eyes that you know it, how much you’re loved, how easy it is to love you, and how good it feels to be good to you.” 

“I know,” Nicky says, raising his head to look at Joe’s face. “I do know. I love you so much. You’re so good to me, so good.” Joe pumps his fist again, feeling Nicky hard in his grip. “Fuck, thank you, thank you, Joe, that’s so good.”

Joe goes to lick his other palm, to swap hands, but Nicky holds up a finger. “Wait.” He reaches down the side of the seat cushion and comes up with a small bottle of lube. 

“I love a resourceful man,” Joe says. He takes the lube and dribbles it over his hand. When he strokes their cocks together again, slick and tight, Nicky’s eyes tighten, they almost close with the sensation. “Baby, open your eyes.” Nicky does; he’s staring right at Joe. “Oh, fuck. Nicky, that’s perfect.”

“Feels so good, Joe. That feels so fucking good, god, your cock is so hot against me. Please don’t stop. Fuck, Joe, I’m—Please! Oh, please don’t stop.” Nicky’s hands are around his back now, clutching his skin.

“I won’t. I’m not stopping. Keep looking at me, baby. You have the most amazing eyes, and I want to see them when you come for me. Don’t wait for me, Nicky.”

“I—“

“I know, but let me make you come, Nicky. Please. I love doing this for you, it feels so good, and you— God, Nicky, I love you. Please baby. Nicky, please, keep looking at me.” 

He’s watching as Nicky’s eyebrows start to draw together again, his mouth drops open, and his words become mostly nonsense.

“Joe. Please, I—“ The corners of his eyes tighten with something that could be a pain but isn’t. 

Speeding up the slightest bit, Joe smiles as he sees Nicky start to crumble. 

“More, please, Joe.” Nicky’s next breath is nothing but two short gasps, and Joe’s never seen anything more beautiful.

“Nicky. Fuck, l want to see those beautiful eyes when you—Oh fuck baby, yes, just like that.” There’s a hot splash against Joe’s belly, his grip even slicker now. “Just like that, oh god Nicky, coming all over me, coming because of me. Shit, Nicky, look at me, I’m gonna come. Fuck, Nicky!”

Nicky’s eyes go wide with wonder as he watches Joe go over the edge. Each pulse of Joe’s cock adds to the mess between them. It’s fucking perfect.

“Thank you,” Joe sighs, his forehead against Nicky's

Nicky’s laugh is quiet and husky. “Isn’t that my line?”

“Not tonight.” He kisses Nicky, just a press of their mouths together. “It’s not easy for people like us to let ourselves feel good, to believe that someone could get so much pleasure from taking care of us. But you did it because I asked, because I said it was important to me. Thank you, Nicky, for letting me be good to you.” 

“You were so good to me.” 

Another kiss, just for the pleasure of feeling his own still-swollen lips against Nicky’s. “You deserve to be taken care of, to be with someone who loves taking care of you. I’m sorry no one before now has given you that, but I’m not sorry that from now on, I get to be the one to do it."

“Can we get in the bed?”

"Yeah, of course.”

In a move he’ll likely regret later, Joe grabs his pajama pants and swipes the worst of the mess off his chest and belly then does the same for Nicky. He takes Nicky’s hands, pulls him up out of the chair, and steers him to the bed.

On his back, Nicky reaches up for Joe. Will there ever be a day when Joe can resist falling into Nicky’s open arms? Certainly not today. Nicky can’t seem to get enough of Joe’s skin against his. 

Joe ends up draped over the length of Nicky’s body, holding Nicky’s head to his neck with one hand and stroking the length of his back with the other. Nicky has his ankles hooked around Joe’s calves, and he’s breathing, deep and even against Joe’s skin. From time to time, Joe wonders if he’s fallen asleep, only to feel Nicky kiss him. 

Pressing a kiss into Nicky’s hair, Joe whispers, “Do you want anything? Water? I could bring the leftovers up.”

Nicky shakes his head. “Just this,” he says. “Just you, right here.”

They doze for a bit, then make their way to the shower to get properly clean. 

Back in bed, clean, happy, and—for the moment—all fucked-out, Joe is tucked against Nicky’s back, kissing the curve of his neck. “I like how this spot smells.” He brushes his nose across the knob at the top of Nicky’s spine. “This one too.”

Nicky drags his fingernails over Joe's forearm, where it’s wrapped around him, holding him close.

They're quiet for a little while longer before Joe says, “Two years ago when I put your number in my phone, I’d never have believed something like this was possible.” He feels a puff of air against his neck as Nicky laughs. 

“I’d never have believed something like this was possible even three weeks ago.” After a minute, Nicky says, "I’m happy you were creepy enough to put my number in your phone, Joe.”

Joe can’t help but smile. “So am I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The next morning, Jess texts Joe a product link for a forty-eight-ounce bottle of lube, along with a note saying she hopes he had a lovely evening. In retaliation, he sends her the most offensively cute sleepy selfie of the two of them that he can manage. Nicky's hair is a wild mess, but his smile is glowing, and there's a bruise along one side of his neck. Joe's cupping Nicky's face, kissing his cheek.
> 
>   
> 
> 
> _"madly in love (both of us) and contemplating spending the day in bed"_
> 
> _"Gross."_
> 
>   
> 
> 
> "Jess says we're gross."
> 
> "Tell Jess it's _our_ love story, we can be as gross as we want.")


	8. somewhere on the other side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Future - A few moments waiting to happen
> 
> An epilogue, but not a goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all? I'm not gonna lie, I'm sad about this.
> 
> I'm putting the poem that inspired the title and the chapter titles in the end notes, just because I think it's beautiful. You know what else is beautiful? Comments and feedback. You are all incredible, and I treasure every time I get to hear from you. Thank you all so much for coming on this ride with me and taking a chance on a silly-sounding AU.

** Christmas with the di Genovas  **

Afterward, Joe will make Nicky buy him a new tie.

It’s his first year spending Christmas with Nicky’s family. They’re a reassuringly loud, welcoming bunch, and Joe feels right home. Nicky's father has adorned the house in cheery decorations. His mother has put out enough food to feed the eight hundred grandchildren she wishes her son and daughter would give her. Food, as Nicky had said, seems to be a cultural requirement.

As the evening goes on, the crowd thins. Children go to bed; older parents say their goodnights. Eventually, the only people sharing the last two bottles of wine are Joe, Nicky, Nicky’s sister Anna, her boyfriend Todd, and three of Nicky’s closest cousins. The family takes it upon themselves to make sure Joe knows the major players for tomorrow night’s big dinner.

“If we’re lucky, Paul won’t come,” Anna says.

“Oh god, why are they still inviting Paul?” Nicky’s cousin Simon looks like he swallowed a bug.

“That’s what I said. I mean, fuck Paul,” Anna says. “I tried to convince Mama not to invite him, but I’m clearly not making any progress, so next year you try.”

“What’s wrong with Paul?” Joe whispers.

“Best not to ask.” Nicky kisses the spot behind Joe’s ear.

“Because I love you, I’ll give you the most important warning,” Todd says, flinging an arm around Joe’s neck. They’ve been the best of buddies since their first meeting when they bonded over having worked at the same bookstore as teenagers, though not at the same time. Joe loves the guy, and the feeling is mutual. “Don’t let them sit you next to Simon’s mom.”

Simon visibly shudders. 

“Oh, come on!” Anna doesn’t look pleased. “Everyone has to pay their dues. Spending Christmas dinner listening to Aunt Linda make subtle—“ Anna’s attempt at finger quotes around ’subtle’ nearly dumps wine in her lap “—references to her kinky sex life is a rite of passage.”

Joe looks at Nicky.

“It is… worse than you’re imagining.”

“I’ll be fine,” Joe says. He survived the summer his mother read ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ he can survive this.

“You think that now.” Brandishing a long, thin breadstick, Antonio speaks with the vehemence only achieved by the righteously trashed. He’s the baby of the family, still in his late 20’s, and he likes Joe because, in this house, Joe is the one person who thinks of him as Antonio, the bright young lawyer, as opposed to ’Tonio, who once smeared chocolate pudding all over himself and pretended to be a bear. 

In his defense, he was four at the time. 

“You think that until she starts talking about the floggers and whether handcuffs should be fuzzy or not.”

“Not fans of fuzzy handcuffs?” Joe asks. For the record, Aunt Linda's opinion had been firmly against them, but she was willing to allow a nice padded suede.

“We’re fans of all kinds of shit, but we don’t need to hear my mother talking about them while the baby Jesus is watching us from the fucking nativity set,” Simon wails.

Joe fails to hold in a laugh.

Having switched back to leaning on Anna, Todd says, “Simon’s right. There’s a time and a place to talk about how amazing your new posture collar is, and that time is not right after you ask someone to pass the mashed potatoes.”

Joe has given up even trying to keep a straight face. “I agree completely,” he says between bouts of laughter. “You’ll be fine if you sit next to Nicky; we’re not into anything like that.”

“Bullshit.” Ella, Nicky’s oldest cousin, is having none of it. “I think no one looks as blissfully domestic and romantic as you two without having some weird shit in their nightstand drawer.”

Joe makes a note to snag the seat next to Ella at dinner; she’s got just the right sense of humor for a large family gathering. He also makes a note to lock their nightstand drawer if she ever comes to visit. There is, in fact, some weird shit in there that’s no one else’s business but his and Nicky’s. 

“Us?” Nicky says. Now is when the alarm bells should start going off in Joe’s head. He should hear klaxons like a submarine about to dive because Nicky never tries this hard to look innocent unless he’s about to be an unmitigated troll. Unfortunately for him, it’s been a long day, and the guys manning his mental guard towers seem to be on break. Joe's halfway through a swallow of wine when Nicky says, “Sorry to disappoint you, but we’re not into anything more exotic than the odd spanking here or there, maybe some biting, a little ‘eating sushi with a fork' from time to time.” 

Joe is holding it together, barely, until Nicky does his best lascivious eyebrow waggle. His wine goes down the wrong pipe, and Joe starts coughing. Suffering the worst of the damage is Joe’s tie, which is a shame; he likes this tie. Or he did before it acquired an abstract purple stain.

“What the hell does that mean?” Todd asks.

“No! I do not need to know about my brother’s sex life!” Anna is staring daggers at Todd, and now Joe is laughing as he’s coughing.

Nicky shrugs. “That’s not my secret to tell; you’ll have to ask Joe.”

Ella hands Joe some water once he’s got his breathing under control again. Unwilling to concede the fight, Joe leans close to Nicky’s ear. 

“Hey, love of my life, before you start congratulating yourself? I _had_ been planning on spending our free time tomorrow on my knees, letting you fuck my face. Instead, I guess I’m going to be making up clever answers to give whenever someone asks me what that phrase means.” He pats Nicky on the chest, kissing him on the cheek. “It’s a shame, baby. I was really looking forward to that.” 

Joe feels a tap on his shoulder and turns to find Todd. He’s holding out Joe's glass, refilled now, and wiped clean of any wine that hadn’t survived the spit-take. 

“Here you go, man. I got you.” His arm is back around Joe’s shoulder. “You and me, Joe. We’re the outsiders here. We didn’t grow up with this shit, and we need to stick together if we’re going to survive.” 

Probably that’s hyperbole, but given that there are a few members of Nicky’s family Joe hasn’t met yet, he’s not willing to risk it. Joe takes the glass. “Thanks, Todd.”

“Welcome to the family, brother.”

** Another Night at Rick and Layla’s, Another White Shirt  **

They’ve been back here at least a dozen times in the last year. The things they had that first time aren’t even on the menu anymore. Still, there’s nowhere else Nicky and Joe would possibly spend this evening. 

Joe left work early, so he’s the first one to arrive. He's slung his backpack over one shoulder, and though his hair is longer and his beard is shorter, he’s wearing the same white button-down as their first date. It’s a sentimental thing, and he refuses to apologize for that. 

The bell over the door brings Rick out of the back room. “Joe! Your partner in crime joining you?”

“He should be.”

“Usuals tonight?”

“For me, yes. I don’t want to guess for Nicky, and he’s just a few minutes away.”

Joe wipes his palms on his jeans as he looks out the huge front window of the shop. His foot won’t stop tapping.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine.” He’s nervous. They’ve been dating for a year, a year _today_ , hence the dinner at Rick and Layla’s. They’ve barely spent a night apart, their days start and end curled around each other in bed; no one has ever known Joe as well as Nicky, and Joe hopes they get to spend the rest of their days being there for each other. So why is he _nervous?_

“Proposing, or breaking up?” Rick says as he slides two glasses of water onto the table.

Joe’s head whips around. _"What?”_

“You’re nervous. Was just wondering if you were planning one of those because either way, I should let Mom know.”

“No. Neither. It’s our anniversary.”

Rick, a man who manages to look gruff and severe even when he’s laughing, smiles at Joe. Other than the moment Nicky walked through the door for the first time, it’s the most unexpected thing Joe’s ever seen in here. “Hey, that’s fantastic! Came back to the scene of the crime, eh?”

“We thought it would be nice to meet here. The food would be different, and there wouldn’t be so much uncertainty, but it would be nice to remember how we felt when it started.” Happy to have something to do with his hands, Joe takes a drink from the glass closest to him.

“Gonna make out in the bathroom again, too?”

Joe fumbles the glass, managing to spill a little less than half of it down the front of himself. He’s still coughing when Nicky comes through the door. 

He stands, blinking at Joe for a few seconds. “Well. At least it’s not food this time.”

“It was the water—“ he pauses to cough again “—that got you in the end, anyway.” Joe’s eyes are red, and his nose is running.

“Usual, Nicky? ” Rick asks.

“That would be great, thanks, Rick. How’s your mom?”

“She’s good; she’ll be happy to see you guys. Probably be out later to say hi. I’ll tell you something, though. She’s going to be a lot less happy to see you if you two decide to celebrate by locking yourselves in the bathroom again.” He slings his dishtowel over one shoulder and wanders into the back to get their food. 

Nicky’s eyes dance as he grins, sliding into the chair opposite Joe.

“Were we this cool and collected the first time?”

“I don’t know, what do you think, ’That would make me Nicky?’”

“I—Remind me why I have sex with you?”

Joe leans close and whispers in his ear. Feeling the tips of his ears get warm, Nicky ducks his head away, saying, “Yes. Well. That’s certainly _part_ of it.”

As they eat, they discuss their plans for the coming summer. Nicky is owed some fairly extensive vacation time, and Joe will be off for at least the entirety of July. Before long, talk turns to their dream trip. For a few months, they’ve been talking about taking a long, indulgent holiday together. They won’t manage it this year, but they’re hoping for next.

“We’ll need to figure out where, so I can start thinking about saving money for the trip,” Joe says.

Nicky fiddles with his fork, spinning it around his plate on its tines. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

Joe takes another bite of his dinner and raises his eyebrows in question.

“I thought perhaps we could put even more into the travel fund if we only had one housing expense.”

Nodding as he chews, Joe swallows and says, “Sure, that would help with it but—“ His forehead creases, and his brows come together. “Nicky? What are you saying?”

“We don’t have to pick one of the two places we have now if you don’t want. There are plenty of places, and would be happy in any of them, as long as I’m there with you.”

It’s come up once or twice, of course, but never with any purpose behind it. At this point, it’s almost a formality. Joe’s had a key to Nicky’s house for months; he regularly gets there ahead of Nicky to start cooking. Likewise, Nicky’s had the code to Joe’s door for nearly as long. They’re in and out of each others’ living spaces with impunity. Every bit of that notwithstanding, Joe's belly fills with a buzzing, happy warmth. 

“Can we keep your place?”

“Certainly. Yes. That way, you won’t have to say goodbye to my bathtub. I know how you feel about it.”

Joe points his fork at Nicky. “What’s between me and that bathtub is no one’s business but our own.” He pauses, wondering if he’s about to be demanding, but ventures a chance anyway. "I want to put my desk in the living room.”

“It will be your house, too. You can put your desk anywhere you want, and the light is lovely there in the afternoons.”

“If you want, some days you could come in after you get home, maybe sit and read while I work.”

He can picture it so clearly. Nicky on the couch, nose in a book, drink forgotten on the table, with his hair streaked by the sun through the big windows. It’s probably a terrible idea, putting his desk in that room because Joe will be distracted from the minute Nicky sits down. But if the payoff is being able to get up, walk over, and kiss Nicky whenever he wants? Joe doesn't give a shit about consequences. 

“So, yes?” Nicky asks.

“Yes, baby. Absolutely. It’s the best idea you’ve had in weeks.” Standing, Joe leans across the table, taking Nicky’s chin in his hand before kissing him. “I love you so much.”

“Every day, more than the day before.” Nicky lifts his face to the kiss.

** The Best Revenge  **

The way they look in the picture was an accident. It was late evening, and the light was warm enough to turn the Mediterranean gold. They disagreed later about which island it was, but they could at least agree it was Greece. 

After trying a few shorter trips to make sure they were compatible travelers (some couples aren’t, and it’s best not to figure that out during a nine-hour layover in Berlin), they’d settled on island hopping for their big holiday. They found the restaurant sometime near the start of the second week, when the feeling of the place had seeped into their bones, and they’d started to slow down and enjoy things more. It was tiny, nearly hidden down a back road, and Nicky nearly cried the food was so good. The view was even better. 

They’d gotten a table overlooking the water and asked the bartender to take their picture. She was a sweet kid, but not familiar with taking pictures using anything other than her phone, so it took her a few tries to get it right. By the time she’d clicked the button, Nicky and Joe had gotten distracted and weren’t looking at the camera anymore. Instead, they were staring at each other. 

It was a trip full of panoramic views, lazy mornings, and a genuinely eye-watering amount of sex. The night before, Nicky had seen Joe, stretched out on the bed. The sight had been too much to resist, and Nicky had dripped wine into the curve at the small of Joe’s back just to lick it clean. They’d found their way to the rooftop, spreading out a blanket under the stars. Joe watched Nicky ride him, saw the moon on his shoulders, and thought, “Please, let me have this forever.” He’d whispered to Nicky how good he was, how beautiful. “I love you,” he said again and again.

That memory was on their minds when the camera’s shutter and that love and joy was evident on both their faces.

After transferring it to his phone later, Joe texted the picture to Jess. 

Her only reply was the word, “Gross,” which is how both Joe and Nicky knew she loved it. They didn’t realize how much she loved it until they agreed to let her throw them an engagement party, and she used that picture on the invitation postcards.

“Can I have an extra postcard?” Joe asked her, and Jess happily sent one. When Nicky found him in the kitchen, Joe had carefully scraped off the event details, then scribbled over the blank spots. 

On the back, he’d put an address he’d come across while going through the “sent to” addresses in Nicky’s Amazon account to find his mother’s zip code.

“My love, why are you even wasting a stamp on him?” When Joe didn’t answer, Nicky grinned, convinced he was seeing another of Joe’s incurable romantic moments. Nicky fucking loved those moments. “Are you going to say it’s because, without him, we wouldn’t have each other?” 

“No,” Joe said, with a surprising amount of vehemence. "It’s because fuck him, that’s why. He’s an asshole who thought he was better than you. No one’s better than you.” He smiled up at Nicky, grabbing his shirt and pulling him close for a kiss. Even years into their love, kisses from Nicky still curled his toes. “I get to kiss you every day, and I see no reason why I shouldn’t rub his nose in it just a little.”

In the blank spot on the back, in purple Sharpie, Joe wrote only the word “Thanks.”

A week later, and a dozen miles away, a man goes to his mailbox to retrieve the day’s mail. Bills, a fundraising letter from his unremarkable university's alumni association, a magazine he will leave conspicuously on the coffee table but never read, and a postcard.

At first, he doesn’t recognize either of the men in the picture, primarily because he’s so focused on their faces that he doesn’t see the “Celebrate Nicky and Joe’s Engagement!” printed at the top in a font with so many flourishes it’s practically Edwardian.

The postcard is stuck in the man’s head as he leaves to meet his dinner date. It’s his third date with her; he’s privately started calling her his girlfriend. 

She sits at the table, pinned in place like a butterfly in a case, as he holds forth. He explains to her the importance of upholding standards and the value of rising above the lure of convenience and banality. 

“He never understood that,” the man tells her as he leans forward. Every time he gestures with his fork—gripping it like a baton, he's emphatically stabbing it in the air—droplets of béarnaise sauce go flying in all directions. So far, she’s managed to avoid the blast radius, but when she looks back at him, the man has leaned so far forward, his tie is dragging across his plate. 

Knowing this is her last date with him—her plan had been break up with him as soon as they’d arrived, but he hadn’t let her get a word in edgewise—for her own edification, and as evidence for when her mother invariably asks what happened, she’s been timing how long he can continue talking at her without any substantive response. So far, she’s at twenty-nine minutes and seventeen seconds. 

He looks at her with wide, beseeching eyes, and says with total sincerity, “It’s about integrity of purpose, Cecile.”

She nods, feigning the least amount of interest she thinks she can get away with. When he pauses for breath, she excuses herself to the bathroom. Roughly three minutes later, she’s in her car on the way home, having walked straight past the bathroom, out the back door. Could she have left him with any number of brilliant parting remarks? Indeed, and she would likely have led with, “My name is Cecily,” but frankly, she has better things to do with her evening. Even the allure of a truly epic last word wasn’t worth sitting at the table with that ponderous tit a moment longer.

Because he hasn’t, in the intervening years, developed any sense of self-control or self-preservation, Josh stomps into the house, has two inadvisably large gin-and-tonics, and rants about it on Facebook. He includes a picture of the invitation. Joe and Nicky don’t see it, and if they did, they wouldn’t care, but thanks to a friend of a friend of a friend recognizing the people in the picture, Jess does. She’s pleased to note that of the twelve replies Josh gets, nine of them are congratulating Joe and Nicky, the other three are correcting Josh’s spelling and grammar.

** Office Party  **

They’ve never been an organization that did big parties; they'd prefer to use their budget on actual services for one thing. But this year is the organization’s tenth anniversary, and Andy has decided they should have a New Year’s Eve celebration, so she's bought her team tickets to a party downtown. While Nicky’s not necessarily a fan of celebrations like this, he is a fan of seeing Joe in a suit. He’s an even bigger fan of dancing with Joe looking as good as he does in a suit.

For this evening’s festivities, Nicky has picked his favorite red tie. 

“My love, can you help me with my cufflinks?” 

“Yeah, baby. One minute,” Joe says. Nicky hears the sound of drawers closing and looks up to see Joe come through the door. He almost swallows his tongue.

“A tux?”

“Sure, why not? Does it look bad?” He lifts Nicky’s wrist, fastening the cufflink. 

“No! No, it’s not that. You look gorgeous, Joe. It’s just—“ he cocks an eyebrow. 

Joe slips the post onto the second cufflink. “What?”

“I’m just picturing the reaction from all the colleagues you haven’t met yet. Nothing is going to convince them I didn’t pay for a date when I walk in there with you dressed like Formal Suit Twink Number Two from 'Awards Show Backstage Gangbangs - Volume Nine.'”

“Baby, that reference is entirely too specific for me to think you just made it up.” He takes the tie from Nicky’s shoulder. “Also, have some confidence in yourself; your date is _clearly_ Formal Suit Twink Number One.” Looping the tie around Nicky’s neck, Joe starts knotting it.

“I don't think so, my heart. Only the eager young upstart wears trousers cut that skinny.” Nicky lifts his chin, so Joe has plenty of room for his hands. “Either way, they’ll all be jealous, even if they do You'll be the best-looking person in that room, gangbang twink or not.”

“I find it hard to believe that I’m the most attractive person in a room that will also have you, Andy, and Nile in it.” Joe slides the knot into place and brushes his hands across Nicky’s shoulders, setting him to rights.

Nicky thinks about it. “If Nile wears green, you might have some competition. But no one else will even come close.” He looks Joe up and down. “Will I have to cut you out of those trousers at the end of the night, or will we be able to peel them off if we really put our backs into it?”

“Admit it; you’d like to peel me out of these trousers.”

Nicky drops a kiss on the corner of Joe’s mouth. “I thought I already opened all my Christmas presents.”

Sighing, Joe shakes his head. “I cannot believe I let a man with your sense of humor put his cock inside me as often as I do.”

“Speaking of which.” Nicky puts his hands on Joe’s hips and tries to steer him back toward the bed, kissing him as they go. 

“Oh,” Joe sighs. “Nicky.” 

They’re a little late. No one who sees Joe in that tux can blame them.

An hour before midnight, Joe finds himself alone with Andy at their table.

“That’s a nice suit, Joe.” 

“Are you just saying that because you’re wearing one just like it?”

Andy grins. “Well, we are the best-dressed people here.”

“Only because Nile didn’t wear green.”

“True.”

Joe picks over the plate Nicky brought back from the dessert buffet, grabbing the smallest eclair he’s ever seen. “Nicky was convinced that if I wore this, everyone was going to give him shit and say he hired me for the night.”

She smirks. “I guarantee you that didn't happen.”

“Oh good,” Nicky says as he approaches from the bar. “Just the woman I was hoping to see.” As he drops into the next seat, Nicky rests his hand on the back of Joe’s neck, kissing his temple. “Is there a reason both DeLancey and Baxter just offered me their congratulations?”

Andy raises her glass. “You know, Joe and I were just discussing that.” She takes a drink while Joe and Nicky wait for her to expand on that statement. “The good news is that Joe has spent so much of the party staring at you as if the sun shines out of your ass that no one thinks you rented him for the night.”

Nicky frowns. “So, what’s the bad news?”

She tips the last of the champagne into her throat. “There isn’t any. Only now you have to live with everyone drawing their own conclusions about how you managed to snag him. I’m guessing Baxter and DeLancey are in the ‘ten-inch dick’ camp.”

By some miracle, Joe has not yet put the tiny eclair in his mouth when she says this. 

Tilting his head, Nicky shrugs in the most European way imaginable. “This seems reasonable.”

Andy’s laugh is as much a surprise and a joy as it was the first time Joe heard it. “I’ll be back,” she says, grabbing her empty glass and heading for the bar.

“I’m having a good time,” Joe says.

“So I am, but I’ll be having a better time when we’re home, and I can get you out of that tux.”

“I’m interested. Keep talking.”

Nicky draws a finger under his tie. “I have been thinking, love, about how this shade of red would look against the skin of your wrists.” 

Joe thinks about the slatted headboard of their bed, and his mouth goes dry. “I was wrong. Stop talking.” Nicky opens his mouth, but Joe's raised hand cuts him off. “No. We’re stuck here for another hour, and I’m not spending that time strangling a hard-on in these pants.”

When Nicky laughs, Joe’s heart feels light. It’s a universal constant in his life.

“Speaking of which, Nile said she wanted to make absolutely sure we’re not planning on having kids because she’s worried those trousers are so tight they’re going to affect your fertility.” 

Joe has no trouble imagining those words coming from her mouth. “What did you tell her?”

“I—I didn’t. Is. Is that something—“ Nicky’s voice trails off.

“Baby, did I break you?” Every vague future plan they’ve made involves both of them, but no one has discussed anything as specific as this.

“No. I just.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You broke me a little.”

Joe leans forward, resting their heads together, and dragging his nose along Nicky's a little. “For now, let’s say there are at least three other conversations that need to happen first, and we just assure Nile that any effects from these pants won't last long. How does that sound?”

Nicky smiles. “That sounds good. Happy New Year, my love.” 

They’re still more than thirty minutes from midnight, but this kiss feels like it has the future in it.

“Happy New Year, baby.”

** Office Party 2: Shots Fired  **

“Are you ready?”

Nicky frowns, flicking through hangers. “Not quite.”

“I thought you had something to wear.”

“I do. Only now, I’m wondering if I have anything else that would make me look more like your sugar daddy.”

“This is the first time you’re meeting most of them; why are you trying to go to my faculty picnic looking like my sugar daddy?”

Nicky shrugs.

Joe cocks one eyebrow. “Nicolò. We’ve been living together for years. My department chair sent out a congratulations message when we got engaged. Even the people who haven’t met you know you exist. None of them are going to get confused and think I’m your kept man.”

“How sure are you about that?” There’s a terrifying twinkle in Nicky’s eye.

“Is this about the tux at your holiday party?”

“What tux?” Nicky asks, his tone a little too bright.

The outfit he chooses makes Nicky look just enough older than Joe to warrant a second glance from any dedicated gossip.

Nicky is entirely convinced he’s won this round until the moment Joe’s department chair waves them over to meet a visiting professor.

“Stephen,” she says. “Let me introduce you to Joe and Nicky. Joe is one of our bright stars.”

“Hello, I’m Joe.” He shakes Stephen’s hand and smiles before gesturing to the love of his life. “That would make him Nicky.”

** I Were but Little Happy…  **

It’s a gorgeous day in late October, and they’ve been lucky with the weather. Most of the week had been rainy, but Saturday morning dawns bright, with that crystal clarity autumn sometimes brings to the Mid-Atlantic. The trees outside the picture windows still have their fall colors, and when the breeze blows, it’s like watching fire licking up the branches.

Their plan for the evening is dinner with friends and family, perhaps some dancing if people are in the mood, but there are some formalities to take care of before they can relax.

Joe has slipped his right hand into Nicky’s left. They’ve both sent everyone else ahead, to allow them a moment together while things are still quiet.

In a minute, they’ll step through the door; both headed for the same spot. When they get there, the words they’ll say will be for everyone’s ears. Both of them have spent weeks making sure they get those words just right. As if it would ever be possible to reduce how they feel about each other to something you can say out loud.

Whatever words they have right now, though, will stay between the two of them. Freed to share whatever is on their minds, they both find nothing left to be said. Instead, they share a kiss in private, sweet and tender, and heavy with promise. 

“You look incredible,” says Joe.

“Thank you,” Nicky says. He straightens Joe’s bow tie. “So do you.”

“Trousers not too tight?” Joe winks at him.

“No. Today you’re definitely Formal Suit Twink Number One.”

Hand in hand, still laughing, they walk through the open doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere on the other side of this wide night  
> and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.  
> The room is turning slowly away from the moon.
> 
> This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say  
> it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing  
> an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.
> 
> La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross  
> to reach you. For I am in love with you
> 
> and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Liz for euphemism assistance. And, as always, to [Cee, my comma fucker extraordinaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/ceeturnalia). She's been tirelessly cheerleading this along, offering suggestions and just generally being an invaluable, delightful asshole.
> 
> Title and chapter title from Carol Ann Duffy's beautiful ["Words, Wide Night."](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/words-wide-night-by-carol-ann-duffy-born-1955-kpj0kdvp580)
> 
> As always, I can be found on the tumbls as [werebearbearbar](https://werebearbearbar.tumblr.com). Come say hi.


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